Zulu (known in Zulu as "isiZulu") has about 9 million speakers, most of whom live in South Africa. It's the first language for about 23% of South Africans and is one of the 11 national languages there.
Zulu is an agglutinative language which is part of the Nguni subfamily of the Bantu family of languages. One of its most distinctive features is the use of click consonants (which were picked up from Khoisan neighbors).
Clicks and Clacks
Here are some hints for pronouncing Zulu. Sometimes folks describe Zulu vowels as being pretty easy (a, e, i, o, u are: far, wet, inn, ore, full), but they're actually harder than that and change depending on what other vowels are near them. These complications are beyond the scope of this sidebar.
c - Inward sucking, like when you disapprovingly make the "tsk tsk" sound.
ch - Inward sucking of the "tsk", but a little more soft and rounded. Never like "chew".
x - Inward dental "t" (what that means is the sound you make when urging a horse while riding).
k - Sharp gutteral sound somewhere between "k" and "g".
kh - Softer gutteral "k", but the 'h' is not pronounced (think of the sound in "calm").
q - Sharp inward "t" using the tongue on the roof of the mouth. The hardest and most well-known click. With your jaws open, press the tongue against the roof of your mouth and then pull it sharply down.
hl - Soft, blowing, very gutteral "sh" followed by a normal "l". This kind of gurgles in your mouth. The Welsh make it when they do their double l words (Llandudno, for example).
dl - "d" + a very gutteral "sh". Take your "hl" and mix in a voiced "d".
ng - Normal "ng" as in English but usually pronounced with a quiet "g". However pronouncing the "g" as normal is also okay.