Whether you know about Xhosa directly or not, you may be aware of the existence of several languages that use clicking sounds as consonants as well as the usual sounds found in most languages. Xhosa has three basic clicking sounds, represented by the letters X, C, and Q, and each of these sounds has several variations, indicated by consonant clusters. Xhosa actually has very few clicking consonants when compared to languages like Jul’hoan, (Botswana and Namibia) which has 48 clicking consonants.
The presence of the clicks is sort of odd from a historical standpoint: Xhosa is part of the Nguni family, which is in turn part of the larger Bantu language family. Most Bantu languages do not have clicks, including the language Xhosa is thought to have developed from. However, San languages (from the larger Khoisan language family) do contain clicks and therefore it is likely that Xhosa had heavy San influence during its development. Most Bantu languages completely overwhelmed earlier languages and it is interesting to note that this was not the case with Xhosa.
Xhosa is spoken in the southeastern part of South Africa and is related to Zulu, the most widespread Nguni language in South Africa. It is an official language, one of eleven, and has the second largest speaker base, with about 16% of the population listing it as a first language. It is used in primary education in areas where it is a majority language, and it is taught in universities and secondary schools as a foreign language. Most people in South Africa know more than one language because the nation is so large and ethnically and linguistically diverse.
Aside from the clicks, Xhosa is an aggluntinative language with many prefixes and suffixes. Most people who speak Indo-European languages are familiar with the concept of noun gender or different classes of nouns with different endings. Xhosa has 15 of these classes, which seems overwhelming. (Speakers of Xhosa, if you are out there, let me know. Most people I have talked to say that their noun cases do not bother them and they do not notice, but maybe Xhosa speakers will have a different answer.)
The only reason I know about Xhosa is because of the South African comedian Trevor Noah, who hosts the American tv staple The Daily Show. A few years ago, he sang a Xhosa song that uses all three clicking sounds on the British panel show QI, and the clip is pretty funny.
Also, if you want to hear somebody speaking, rather than singing, this video shows off all the clicks pretty well.
A Middleground 