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ǃXóõ
Taa , also known as ǃXóõ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ), is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click. Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake) or ʼNǀohan (pl. Nǀumde), depending on the dialect they speak. The Tuu languages are one of the three traditional language families that make up the Khoisan languages. is the word for 'human being'; the local name of the language is , from 'language'. (ǃXóõ) is an ethnonym used at opposite ends of the Taa-speaking area, but not by Taa speakers in between. Most living Taa speakers are ethnic ǃXoon (plural ) or 'Nǀohan (plural ). Taa shares a number of characteristic features with West ǂʼAmkoe and Gǀui, which together are co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuu Languages
The Tuu languages, or Taa–ǃKwi (Taa–ǃUi, ǃUi–Taa, Kwi) languages, are a language family consisting of two language clusters spoken in Botswana and South Africa. The relationship between the two clusters is not doubted, but is distant. The name ''Tuu'' comes from a word common to both branches of the family for "person". History The ancestor of Tuu languages, Proto-Tuu, was presumably also spoken in or around the Kalahari desert, as a word for the gemsbok (''*!hai'') is reconstructable to Proto-Tuu. There is evidence of substantial borrowing of words between Tuu languages and other Khoisan languages, including basic vocabulary. Khoekhoe in particular is thought to have a Tuu (!Ui branch) substrate. Examples of borrowings from Khoe into Tuu include 'chest' (ǃXóõ ''gǁúu'' from Khoe ''*gǁuu'') and 'chin' (Nǁng ''gǃann'' from Khoe ''*ǃann''). A root for 'louse' shared by some Khoe and Tuu languages (''ǁxóni''~''kx'uni''~''kx'uri'') has been suggested as d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nǁng Language
Nǁng or Nǁŋǃke, commonly known by the name of its dialect Nǀuu (Nǀhuki), is a moribund Tuu (Khoisan) language once spoken in South Africa. It is no longer spoken on a daily basis, as the speakers live in different villages. The dialect name ǂKhomani is used for the entire people by the South African government, but the descendants of ǂKhomani-dialect speakers now speak Khoikhoi. As of June 2021, only one speaker of the Nǀuu dialect and two of the ǁʼAu dialect remain. Classification and name Nǁng belongs to the Tuu (Taa–ǃKwi) language family, with extinct ǀXam being its closest relative and Taa its closest living relative. The two recent dialects are Nǀuu (Nǀhuki) and ǁʼAu (ǁKhʼau). Extinct dialects include ǂKhomani and Langeberg. ǂKhomani had been recorded by Doke and by Maingard, Nǀhuki by Weshphal, and Langeberg by Dorothea Bleek. As of 2010, most remaining speakers spoke Nǀuu dialect, and this was the name Nǁng appeared under when it was redi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoisan Languages
The Khoisan languages (; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a group of African languages originally classified together by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan languages share click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates. All Khoisan languages but two are indigenous to southern Africa and belong to three language families. The Khoe family appears to have migrated to southern Africa not long before the Bantu expansion. Ethnically, their speakers are the Khoikhoi and the San (Bushmen). Two languages of east Africa, those of the Sandawe and Hadza, originally were also classified as Khoisan, although their speakers are ethnically neither Khoikhoi nor San. Before the Bantu expansion, Khoisan languages, or languages like them, were likely spread through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the ''tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity, the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse, and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). The forward closure is then released,This is the case for all clicks used as consonants in words. Paralinguistically, however, there are other methods of making clicks: ''under'' the tongue or as above but by releasing the rear occlusion first. See #Places of articul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect Continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India, varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages, the Chinese languages or dialects, and subgroups of the Romance, Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Leonard Bloomfield used the name dialect area. Charles F. Hockett used the term L-complex. Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves. In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Traill (linguist)
Professor Anthony Traill (1939–2007) was a linguist (specifically a phonetician), who was the world's foremost authority on a San (more broadly, a Khoisan) language called !Xóõ. He published widely on this language, including a dictionary of the language. !Xóõ is famous for having probably the largest consonant inventory of any language on the planet. For the most part, Traill's publications addressed the phonetics of !Xóõ in relation to related San languages. He also contributed importantly to the Khoisan and Bantu instrumental phonetic literature on tone with respect to voice and breathy voice. Traill was Professorial Research Fellow at Wits University for nearly the decade since he was Professor and Chair of Linguistics (until 1998), in the Department of Linguistics, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He spoke highly competent !Xóõ, having conducted research in the !Xóõ communities of Botswana on nearly 100 field trips over m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothea Bleek
Dorothea Frances Bleek (later Dorothy F. Bleek; born 26 March 1873, Mowbray, Cape Town – died 27 June 1948, Newlands, Cape Town) was a South African-born German anthropologist and philologist known for her research on the Bushmen (the San people) of southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number .... Life and work Dorothea Bleek was the fifth daughter of Wilhelm Bleek, a pioneering philologist studying the languages and cultures of southern Africa in the late 1800s. Much of his work was done in partnership with his sister-in-law (Dorothy Bleek's aunt, Lucy Lloyd). The work of Dorothy Bleek was largely a continuation of her father and aunt's research, but she also made numerous notable contributions of her own to the field. Her culminating work, published aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected to Zambia across the short Zambezi River border by the Kazungula Bridge. A country of slightly over 2.3 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. About 11.6 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Modern-day humans first inhabited the country over 200,000 years ago. The Tswa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Nossob Language
Lower Nossob is an extinct Khoisan language once spoken along the Nossob River on the border of South Africa and Botswana, near Namibia. It was closely related to the Taa language. There are two attested dialects: ǀʼAuni (ǀʼAuo), recorded by Dorothea Bleek Dorothea Frances Bleek (later Dorothy F. Bleek; born 26 March 1873, Mowbray, Cape Town – died 27 June 1948, Newlands, Cape Town) was a South African-born German anthropologist and philologist known for her research on the Bushmen (the San peo ..., and ǀHaasi, recorded by Robert Story. ǀʼAuni is the word the former use for themselves; ǀʼAuo (or ǀʼAu) is what they call their language. ''ǀauni, ǁauni, Auni'' are misspellings. Other renderings of the name ǀHaasi are ''Kʼuǀha꞉si, Kiǀhasi,'' and ''Kiǀhazi.''Yvonne Treis, 1998, "Names of Khoisan Languages and their Variants" References External links ǀʼAuni and ǀHaasi basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database {{Khoisan Tuu languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal
Ernst Oswald Johannes Gotthard Gotthilf Westphal ( Khalava in Venda, South Africa, 1919 - Bredasdorp near Cape Town, South Africa, 27 November 1990), was a South African linguist and an expert in Bantu and Khoisan languages. From 1949 to 1962 he taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Biography Ernst Westphal was born at Khalava in Venda, the son of German Lutheran missionary parents. His father was Gotthard Westphal and his grandfather, also Ernst Westphal, was with his wife Wilhelmine the teacher and mentor of Solomon Plaatje. Already as a child E.O.J. Westphal was fluent in German, English, and Afrikaans, like many South Africans. His first and native language, however, was Venda, and as a child he was initiated into the partly secret Venda rites for young men. He studied Zulu and Southern Sotho under Clement Martyn Doke at the University of the Witwatersrand and, after graduating in 1942, was a Lecturer there 1942-1947. He w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
