This ethnographic analysis concentrates on Eastern Cape migrants' elaboration of Cape Town urban 'being' and speech styles, especially on the symbolic use of English material in an isiXhosa frame and the symbolic Tsotsitaal meanings as a typical urban speech style, indicating social and local identity. As speakers manage the complex urban speech space, they not only rely on speech forms indexical of urbanity, yet also on “deep” isiXhosa, namely a speech style mustering rural, traditional normativities.