Oscars 2019: What Trevor Noah Really Said In His 'Black Panther' Joke

While presenting the montage for best picture nominee Black Panther, Daily Show host Trevor Noah made a joke in Xhosa, a language spoken by millions in South Africa and in a few other African countries as well.

After noting that people all over the world shout out "Wakanda forever" to him — referring to the fictional African nation in the movie — Noah said: "Growing up as a young boy in Wakanda, I would see King T'Challa flying over our village, and he would remind me of a great Xhosa phrase: 'Abelungu abazi ubu ndiyaxoka,' which means, 'In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart."

The audience applauded.

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What it really means: "White people don't know I'm lying."

(In case you're wondering, Xhosa is pronounced with a click like this.)

Many South Africans loved the inside joke, says Lihle Ninie Sasa, 24, a South African college student who lives in Cape Town and is a Xhosa speaker. "We love Trevor. South Africans call him the 'national treasure,' " she says. "Using IsiXhosa [another way to refer to the language] at the Oscars was really cool."

There are some quibbles about his use of African languages in his comedy bits, though.

"He knows that speaking in a language full of clicks and sounds that Westerners generally won't ever hear will evoke a sort of fascination. Some feel like he exploits this," writes Zanie Ferreira, 28, a corporate intelligence analyst from Cape Town, via Twitter direct message. She is a white South African and does not speak Xhosa.

But she thinks the Oscars joke worked: "He knew only a small portion of people will get it. I think that's clever, and the reaction of the crowd was exactly what made it funny."

Ferreira likes that Noah represented her country at the largely Western event.

"Diversity in nationalities [at the Oscars] is long overdue. Add in a foreign language, spoken ... in the global south, and that's pretty special," she says.

Noah's phrase even sparked a trending hashtag on social media in South Africa, #KodwaAbayaziNdiyaXoka. It means "but they don't know that I'm lying," says college student Sasa.

She is a participant in the meme. Her contribution? What she says to boys when they ask for her number.

Others joined in on the fun — sharing phrases that sound like one thing but actually mean something else.

P.S. King T'Challa really can't fly.

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