Xhosa is natively spoken by about 9.7 million people, primarily in South Africa, where it is one of the official languages. It is integral to Xhosa cultural identity, known for its click consonants, oral traditions like praise poetry (imbongi), and rituals such as the Xhosa initiation rites (ulwaluko). Written in the Latin alphabet with additional diacritics, Xhosa grammar features a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order, extensive use of noun classes (similar to other Bantu languages), and a system of verb conjugations that indicate tense, aspect, and mood.