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Khoisan languages

 

 

 

 

 

Khoisan languages


 
 


The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern AfricaAfrica

Africa is one of the greatest sized continents of the Earth....
; in southern Africa their speakers are the KhoiKhoi Summary

*The common name of Siamese Rough Bush. '...
 and BushmenBushmen

The Bushmen are an indigenous population of the Kalahari Desert, which spans South Africa and neighbouring Botswana and Nami...
 (Saan), in east Africa the Sandawe and Hadza. They are famous for their clicksClick consonant

Clicks are stops produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity....
. Many people were exposed to this group of languages through N!xauN!xau

N!xau, 1944- July 1, 2003) was a Namibian bush farmer who was made famous by his roles in the 1980 movie The Gods Must Be ...
's language in the 19801980 in film

The year 1980 in film involved some significant events....
 film The Gods Must Be CrazyThe Gods Must Be Crazy

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a film released in 1980, written and directed by Jamie Uys....
.

Khoisan is the smallest phylumPhylum (linguistics)

A phylum is a term in linguistics used for language classification which denotes the highest recognized level of hierarchy....
 of African languagesAfrican languages

There are an estimated 1800 languages spoken in Africa....
 in Greenberg'sJoseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial linguist, known for his work in both language classification and ...
 classification. However, the connection is not accepted by the linguists who study Khoisan languages, and the name "Khoisan" is used as a term of convenience without any implication of linguistic validity, much as "PapuanPapuan languages

The term Papuan languages refers to those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian....
" and "Australian" are. It may be that the Tuu and Juu (or Juu-?Hoan) families are similar due to a southern African SprachbundSprachbund

A Sprachbund is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity....
 rather than a genealogical relationship, whereas the Khoe (or perhaps Kwadi-Khoe) family is a more recent migrant to the area, and may be related instead to Sandawe in East Africa.

Prior to the BantuBantu

Bantu is a general term for over 400 different ethnic groups in Africa, from Cameroon to South Africa, united by a common la...
 expansion, it is likely that Khoisan languages, or languages like them, were spread throughout southern and eastern Africa. Today they are restricted to the Kalahari DesertKalahari Desert

The Kalahari Desert is a large arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Africa extending 900,000 km², covering much of ...
, primarily in NamibiaNamibia Overview

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa on the Atlantic coast....
 and BotswanaBotswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked nation in Southern Africa....
, and to the Rift ValleyRift valley

In geology, a rift valley is a valley created by the formation of a rift....
 in central TanzaniaTanzania

Tanzania , officially the United Republic of Tanzania , is a country on the east coast of Africa....
.

Most Khoisan languages are endangered, and several are moribundMoribund language

A language is usually considered moribund when it is no longer the language of the community, and is no longer learned by ch...
 or extinct. Most have no written record. The only widespread Khoisan language is NamaNama language

Nm, previously called Hottentot, is the most populous and widespread of the Khoisan languages....
 of Namibia, with a quarter of a million speakers; SandaweSandawe language

Sandawe is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania....
 in Tanzania is second in number with about 40,000, some monolingual; and the JuuJu languages

The Ju or !Kung languages are a language family consisting of a single dialect continuum spoken in Botswana, Namibia, ...
 language cluster of the northern Kalahari is spoken by some 30,000 people.

Khoisan languages are best known for their use of click consonantClick consonant

Clicks are stops produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity....
s as phonemePhoneme

In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones that are cognitively equivalent....
s. These are written with letters such as !Postalveolar click Summary

The alveolar and postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jar...
 and ?Palatal click

The palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa....
. The Ju|'hoan language has some 30 click consonants, not counting clusters, among perhaps 90 phonemes, which include stridentStrident vowel

Strident vowels are strongly pharyngealized vowels accompanied by epiglottal trill, where the larynx is raised and the phary...
 and pharyngealized vowels and four tones. The !Xóõ!Xóõ language Overview

!X is a Khoisan language with a very large number of phonemes, the most of any known language....
 and ?Hõã‡Hõã language Summary

H or Hoan, more accurately Qh, is an unclassified Khoisan language of Botswana....
 languages are similarly complex.

Grammatically, the southern Khoisan languages are generally fairly isolating, with word order being more widely used to indicate grammatical relations than is inflection. The languages of Tanzania have large numbers of inflectional suffixes.

Classification

The putative branches of Khoisan are generally considered independent families, given the lack of evidence that they are related.

See Khoe languagesKhoe languages

The Khoe languages comprise the most diverse of the language families that existed in southern Africa prior to the Bantu exp...
 for speculations on the linguistic history of the region.

Hadza

  • HadzaHadza language

    Hadza is a language isolate along the southern shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, with less than a thousand speakers....
    (975 speakers in Tanzania)

Hadza appears to be unrelated to any other language; genetically, the Hadza people are unrelated to the Khoisan peoples of Southern Africa, and their closest relatives may be among the Pygmies of Central Africa.

Sandawe

  • SandaweSandawe language

    Sandawe is a tonal language spoken by about 40,000 people in the Dodoma region of Tanzania....
    (40,000 speakers in Tanzania)

There is some indication that Sandawe may be related to the Khoe-Kwadi family, such as a congruent pronominal system and some good Swadesh-listFacts About Swadesh list

A Swadesh list is a prescribed list of basic vocabulary developed by Morris Swadesh in the 1940-50s, which is used in glotto...
 matches, but not enough to establish regular sound correspondences. The Sandawe are not related to the Hadza, despite their proximity.

Tuu

The Tuu family consists of two language clusters, which are related to each other at about the distance of Khoekhoe and Tshukhwe within Khoe. They are typologically very similar to the Juu languages (below), but have not been demonstrated to be related to them genealogically. (The similarities may be an arealSprachbund

A Sprachbund is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity....
 feature.)
  • TuuTuu languages

    The Tuu or Taa-!Kwi languages are a language family consisting of two transparently related language clusters sp...
    • Taa
      • !Xóõ!Xóõ language

        !X is a Khoisan language with a very large number of phonemes, the most of any known language....
         (4200 speakers. A dialect cluster.)
      • Lower Nossob (Two dialects, |'Auni and |Haasi. Extinct.)
    • !Kwi
      • N?ng (A dialect cluster. Moribund, with 8 N|u speakers.)
      • |Xam|Xam language

        |Xam, or |Xam Kak!'e, is an extinct Khoisan language of South Africa, part of the !Kwi language group....
         (A dialect cluster. Extinct.)
      • ?Ungkue (A dialect cluster. Extinct.)
      • ?Xegwi?Xegwi language

        ?Xegwi is an extinct !Kwi language of South Africa, near the Swazi border....
         (Extinct.)

Juu-?Hoan

The Juu-?Hoan family is a distant relationship, only recently proposed, that is being increasingly accepted.
  • Juu-?HoanJuu-?Hoan languages

    The Juu-?Hoan languages form a recently proposed family linking the isolate with the Juu dialect cluster....
    • ?Hõã (200 speakers, Botswana. Moribund.)
    • JuuJu languages Overview

      The Ju or !Kung languages are a language family consisting of a single dialect continuum spoken in Botswana, Namibia, ...
       (also !Kung, formerly Northern Khoisan) is a single dialect cluster. (~45,000 speakers.) Well known dialects are !Kung (!Xuu)!Kung language

      !Kung or !O!Kung is a group of northern dialects of the Ju dialect continuum, which is generally classified as part of...
      , Ju|'hoan, and ?Kx'au?'ein.

Other "Click Languages"


Not all languages using clicks as phonemes are considered Khoisan. Most are neighboring Bantu languagesBantu languages

Bantu is a major language family of Africa, belonging to the Niger-Congo group....
 in southern Africa: the Nguni languages XhosaXhosa language

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa....
, ZuluZulu language

Zulu , is a language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa....
, Swazi, PhuthiPhuthi language

Phuthi is a Nguni Bantu language heavily influenced by the surrounding Sotho and Xhosa languages....
, and NdebeleNdebele language

There are at least two languages commonly called Ndebele:...
; Sotho; YeyiYeyi language

Yeyi is a moribund Bantu language with about 40,000 speakers in Northern Botswana and 5000 in the Caprivi Strip....
 in BotswanaBotswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked nation in Southern Africa....
; and Mbukushu, Kwangali, and Gciriku in the Caprivi StripCaprivi Strip

Caprivi, sometimes called the Caprivi Strip and formally known as Itenge, is a narrow protrusion of Namibia east...
; but there is also the South CushiticSouth Cushitic languages

The South Cushitic languages belong to the Afro-Asiatic family and are spoken in Tanzania....
 language DahaloDahalo language

Dahalo is an endangered South Cushitic language spoken by about 400 people in Kenya....
 in KenyaKenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in Eastern Africa....
, and an extinct northern AustralianAustralian Aboriginal languages

The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to Australia and a few nearby isl...
 ritual language called DaminDamin

Damin was a ceremonial language register used by the advanced initiated men of the Lardil and the Yangkaal tribes in A...
.

The Bantu languages adopted the use of clicks from neighboring, displaced, or absorbed Khoisan populations, often through intermarriage, while the Dahalo are thought to have retained clicks from an earlier language when they shiftedLanguage shift

Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or rate of assimilation, is the process whereby a spe...
 to speaking a Cushitic language; if so, the pre-Dahalo language may have been something like Hadza or Sandawe. Damin is an invented ritual language, and has nothing to do with Khoisan.

External links

  • (considered unreliable by Khoisanists; see previous link)