Locale Xh Za
Use when working with the Xhosa (South Africa) locale (`xh-ZA`) — its endonym isiXhosa (uMzantsi Afrika), Latin script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
Reference data for the Xhosa (South Africa) locale — endonym isiXhosa (uMzantsi Afrika), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).
Identifiers
- BCP 47 tag:
xh-ZA - ISO 639-1:
xh - ISO 639-3:
xho - Script: Latn (Latin)
- Region: ZA (South Africa)
- Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)
Speakers (approximate)
- L1 (native): 8,200,000
- L2 (additional): 11,800,000
- L1+L2 (total): 20,000,000
Base locale
This is a regional variant of Locale Xh 001 (Xhosa), the base/macro locale for this language.
Pluralization
CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).
- one —
n = 1(e.g. 1) - other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)
See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.
Translating into this locale
Apply Locale Xh 001 with the conventions of South Africa.
- Context: isiXhosa is one of eleven official languages of South Africa, widely spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape.
- Formats: rand (
R); dates17 Oktobha 2026; 24-hour clock; check CLDR for separators. - Terminology: use PanSALB and National Language Service lists for official content.
Common pitfalls
- Mixing Zulu forms.
- Dropping click letters.
- The general pitfalls in Locale Xh 001 also apply.
Learn more
- Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), the statutory body for the official languages of South Africa