Wakanda may be bastard , but Wakandan is a real voice communication . In scenes in Captain America : Civil War where actors playing Wakandans speak to each other , they ’re speaking Xhosa , one of South Africa ’s prescribed languages .
While T’Challa ( Chadwick Boseman ) speaks English to the other English - speak character in the film , the choice was made that scenes between T’Challa and his father , T’Chaka ( John Kani ) , should be in Wakandan ; it is , after all , an island nation with a strong resistance to outsider . They ’d obviously speak in their own language .
On the choice of Xhosa , director Joe Russo toldEntertainment Weekly , “ John Kani , the thespian who plays T’Challa ’s beginner in the movie , utter the language and taught it to Chadwick . ”
Xhosa is spoken by 7.6 million people , and one of its characteristic is the employment of clicks as part of the language . Here ’s a pre - Daily Show Trevor Noah explaining it :
So when you learn Wakandan in the movie , know it ’s not a made - up oral communication in the vein of Klingon or Dothraki . It ’s a tangible one .
Black PantherEntertainmentJoe RussoMarvelMovies
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