90-688: Khwe / ˈ k w eɪ / KWAY (also rendered Kxoe, Khoe / ˈ k ɔɪ / KOY ) is a dialect continuum of the Khoe branch of the Khoe-Kwadi family of Namibia , Angola , Botswana , South Africa , and parts of Zambia , with some 8,000 speakers. Khwe is a member of the Khoe branch of the larger Khoe-Kwadi language family. In 2000, the meeting of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in South Africa (WIMSA) produced
180-639: A dialect survey conducted by the University of Namibia 's Department of African Languages, it was revealed that proto-Damara most likely migrated through the western Caprivi area before the Khwe settled the area, as there is little lexical overlap. The Khwe speakers' distribution in the greater Kavango-Zambezi region influenced clicks in Khoisan languages, some argue. The Khwe, and other Khoe language speaking peoples, resided in greater Southern Africa, prior to
270-436: A modifier - head order, in which manner adverbs precede the verb, and adjectives and possessors attributes precede the noun. In Khwe, subjects of intransitive verbs , subjects and direct objects of transitive verbs, and one of the objects of ditransitive verbs are commonly omitted when the participants are known to the speakers through inner- or extra-linguistic context. Khwe has two multiverbal constructions that may denote
360-493: A classic example of a dialect continuum, encompassing Norway, Denmark, Sweden and coastal parts of Finland. The Continental North Germanic standard languages ( Norwegian , Danish and Swedish ) are close enough and intelligible enough for some to consider them to be dialects of the same language, but the Insular ones ( Faroese and Icelandic ) are not immediately intelligible to the other North Germanic speakers. Historically,
450-469: A continuum until they have independent cultural status (autonomy), a process the German linguist Heinz Kloss called ausbau . Speakers of local varieties typically read and write a related standard variety, use it for official purposes, hear it on radio and television, and consider it the standard form of their speech, so that any standardizing changes in their speech are towards that variety. In such cases
540-457: A dialect continuum (excluding urban enclaves of Cantonese ). There are sharper boundaries resulting from more recent expansion between Hakka and Yue, and between Southwestern Mandarin and Yue, but even here there has been considerable convergence in contact areas. Cree is a group of closely related Algonquian languages that are distributed from Alberta to Labrador in Canada . They form
630-459: A dialect continuum, drawing lines called isoglosses between areas that differ with respect to some feature. A variety within a dialect continuum may be developed and codified as a standard language , and then serve as an authority for part of the continuum, e.g. within a particular political unit or geographical area. Since the early 20th century, the increasing dominance of nation-states and their standard languages has been steadily eliminating
720-447: A dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicates a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries. In other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified at one or more locations in
810-522: A distinct dialect, but the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard varieties of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language are all based on the same dialect, Shtokavian . Therefore, Croats , Serbs , Bosniaks and Montenegrins communicate fluently with each other in their respective standardized varieties . In Croatia , native speakers of Shtokavian may struggle to understand distinct Kajkavian or Chakavian dialects, as might
900-525: A language defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible, such as the German dialects . The choice of standard is often determined by a political boundary, which may cut across a dialect continuum. As a result, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, and thus part of different "languages". The various local dialects then tend to be leveled towards their respective standard varieties, disrupting
990-474: A language of western Zambia , as a lingua franca . Many also speak English, while Afrikaans has almost disappeared. The area is rich in natural wildlife and has mineral resources. Of particular interest to the government of Namibia is that it gives access to the Zambezi River and is thereby a potential trading route to Africa's East Coast. However, the vagaries of the river level, various rapids,
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#17327661252081080-464: A large extent, but those from distant regions are more difficult to be understood. The difference between the written standard and the vernaculars is apparent also in the written language, and children have to be taught Modern Standard Arabic in school to be able to read it. All modern Aramaic languages descend from a dialect continuum that historically existed before the Islamicization of
1170-737: A less arguable example of a dialect continuum. For many decades since Italy's unification, the attitude of the French government towards the ethnolinguistic minorities was copied by the Italian government. The eastern Romance continuum is dominated by Romanian . Outside Romania and Moldova, across the other south-east European countries, various Romanian language groups are to be found: pockets of various Romanian and Aromanian subgroups survive throughout Bulgaria , Serbia , North Macedonia , Greece , Albania and Croatia (in Istria ). Conventionally, on
1260-679: A mineral expedition in 1909 proved unsuccessful, Germany contemplated exchanging the strip for some other British territory, such as Walvis Bay . When that territory was transferred to the Cape Colony by the British in 1910, Germany was stuck with Caprivi for the rest of its colonial history. In 1976, the South African administration established the self-governing Eastern Caprivi homeland with its own flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. It remained under direct de facto control of
1350-492: A rapid and ever-increasing decline since the 1850s. Standard Dutch was based on the dialects of the principal Brabantic and Hollandic cities. The written form of Standard German originated in the East Central German used at the chancery of the kingdom of Saxony , while the spoken form emerged later, based on North German pronunciations of the written standard. Being based on widely separated dialects,
1440-554: A result of centuries of interaction and multilingualism. The boundaries between the northern Mandarin area and the central groups, Wu , Gan and Xiang , are particularly weak, due to the steady flow of northern features into these areas. Transitional varieties between the Wu, Gan and Mandarin groups have been variously classified, with some scholars assigning them to a separate Hui group. The boundaries between Gan, Hakka and Min are similarly indistinct. Pinghua and Yue form
1530-440: A series of closely connected events: serial verb constructions (SVC) and converb constructions. An SVC expresses a complex event composed by two or more single events that happen at the same time, and a converb construction marks the immediate succession of two or more events. SVCs in Khwe consist of two or more verbs forming a single intonation unit, with only the last verb being marked for TAM. The preceding verbs obligatorily take
1620-404: A subject or used as a language of instruction in formal education, and few literacy materials exist. 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
1710-832: Is a group of closely related Algonquian languages in Canada , which is distributed from British Columbia to Quebec , and the United States , distributed from Montana to Michigan , with diaspora communities in Kansas and Oklahoma . With Cree, the Ojibwe dialect continuum forms its own continuum, but the Oji-Cree language of this continuum joins the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum through Swampy Cree . The Ojibwe continuum has 70,606 speakers. Roughly from northwest to southeast, it has these dialects: Unlike
1800-1048: 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 varieties of Chinese , and parts of the Romance , Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area ( Leonard Bloomfield ) and L-complex ( Charles F. Hockett ). 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 impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of various language features across
1890-454: Is based on sex, and is expressed by PGNs, with gender being marked even in first-person dual and plural. Negation in Khwe is indicated with the clause-final negative particle vé, which can be used to indicate non-occurrence of an event, non-equation between entities, and the non-possession of an entity. The post-verbal particle tí can also be used, although its application is limited to prohibitive functions, such as negative imperatives and
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#17327661252081980-503: Is bordered by Botswana to the south and Angola and Zambia to the north. Namibia, Botswana and Zambia meet at a single point at the eastern tip of the Strip, which also comes within 150 m (490 ft) of Zimbabwe , thus nearly forming a quadripoint . Botswana and Zambia share a 150-metre (490 ft) border at the crossing of Kazungula . The territory was acquired by then- German South West Africa in order to provide access to
2070-520: Is closely related to Italian; in Italy, Ligurian , Piedmontese , Lombard , Emilian , Romagnol , Italian Gallo-Picene, Venetian , Friulian , Ladin ; and in Switzerland, Lombard and Romansh . This continuum is sometimes presented as another example, but the major languages in the group (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian) have had separate standards for longer than the languages in
2160-1053: Is identical or near-identical. The Germanic dialects spoken on the island of Great Britain comprise areal varieties of English in England and of Scots in Scotland. Those of large areas north and south of the border are often mutually intelligible. In contrast, the Orcadian dialect of Scots is very different from the dialects of English in southern England —but they are linked by a chain of intermediate varieties. The western continuum of Romance languages comprises, from West to East: in Portugal, Portuguese ; in Spain, Galician , Leonese or Asturian , Castilian or Spanish , Aragonese and Catalan or Valencian ; in France, Occitan , Franco-Provençal , standard French and Corsican which
2250-461: Is now more difficult to recognize because many of the intervening languages have declined or become extinct. The Goidelic languages consist of Irish , Scottish Gaelic and Manx . Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, the continuum existed throughout Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland. Many intermediate dialects have become extinct or have died out leaving major gaps between languages such as in
2340-760: Is of politico-strategic military importance. During the Rhodesian Bush War (1964–1979), South West African People's Organization 's and Caprivi African National Union 's (CANU) liberation war against the South African occupation (1965–1994) and the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the Strip saw continual military action and multiple incursions by various armed forces using the Strip as a corridor to access other territories. The Caprivi conflict involved an armed conflict in Namibia between
2430-412: Is perhaps most evident today in Italy, where, especially in rural and small-town contexts, local Romance is still often employed at home and work, and geolinguistic distinctions are such that while native speakers from any two nearby towns can understand each other with ease, they can also spot from linguistic features that the other is from elsewhere. In recent centuries, the intermediate dialects between
2520-495: Is semantically rooted in oral perception, is used to convey holistic modes of sensory perception. The Khwe term xǀóa functions both as a verb 'to be little, few, some' and as an alternative way of expressing the quantity 'three'. This term is unique in its ambiguity among numeral terms used by African hunter-gatherer subsistence communities. Khwe has a large number of loan words from Afrikaans . In 1957, Oswin Köhler, founder of
2610-602: The Balkans in the west with Balkan Turkish , includes Turkish in Turkey and Azerbaijani language in Azerbaijan , extends into Iran with Azeri and Khalaj , into Iraq with Turkmen , across Central Asia to include Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , to southern Regions of Tajikistan and into Afghanistan . In the south, the continuum starts in northern Afghanistan, northward to Chuvashia . In
2700-587: The Bantu language family, with speakers of Mbarakwena [Xu-Khoisan], Hukwe a San language, in the northwest of the strip near the border with Angola. The Bantu languages include Yeyi (or 'Yei' or 'Yeeyi'), Mbukushu , Gciriku (or 'Dciriku'), Fwe , Totela , and Subiya . The Silozi language is a lingua Franca of the Caprivi Strip, especially in Katima Mulilo , where some residents speak Lozi ,
2790-719: The Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA), a rebel group aiming for the secession of the Caprivi Strip led by Mishake Muyongo , and the Namibian government. Its main eruption occurred on 2 August 1999 when the CLA launched an attack in Katima Mulilo, occupying the state-run radio station and attacking a police station, the Wenela border post, and an army base. Namibian armed forces quashed the attempt at secession within
Khwe language - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-549: The Chobe River was the thalweg , the bona fide international boundary. This was important, as, depending on the decision, a large island (known as Kasikili or Sedudu , by Namibia and Botswana respectively) would fall into one or the other's national territory. The Botswana government considered the island as an integral part of the Chobe National Park , whereas the Namibian government, and many inhabitants of
2970-571: The Dutch , Frisian , Low Saxon and High German dialects formed a canonical dialect continuum, which has been gradually falling apart since the Late Middle Ages due to the pressures of modern education, standard languages, migration and weakening knowledge of the dialects. The transition from German dialects to Dutch variants followed two basic routes: Though the internal dialect continua of both Dutch and German remain largely intact,
3060-556: The East Slavic and West Slavic languages . East Slavic includes Russian , Belarusian , Rusyn and Ukrainian ; West Slavic languages of Czech , Polish , Slovak , Silesian , Kashubian , and Upper and Lower Sorbian . All South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum. It comprises, from West to East, Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , North Macedonia , and Bulgaria . Standard Slovene , Macedonian , and Bulgarian are each based on
3150-694: The Okavango Delta , where they primarily used hunter-gatherer techniques for subsistence. These testimonies also indicate that living Khwe speakers feel as though they are land-less, and feel as though the governments of Botswana and Namibia have taken their land and rights to it. Until the 1970s, the Khwe speaking population lived in areas that were inaccessible to most Westerners in remote parts of Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa. Since then, livelihoods have shifted from primarily from hunter-gatherer to more Westernized practices. The first Bantu -speaking education that Khwe speakers received
3240-765: The Okavango River , and Gudigoa in Botswana. Noting this, there have been major forced migrations from government pressures that have influenced the contemporary distribution of Khwe speakers. In 1990, 4,000 Xhu- and Khwe-speaking people, including former members of the 31 Battalion (SWATF) who fought under the South African Defence Force in the Namibian War , were settled in a tent town in Schmidtsdrift , South Africa. In 2003,
3330-466: The Romance languages , which are similarly descended from a language spread by imperial expansion over substrate languages 2000 years ago. Unlike Europe, however, Chinese political unity was restored in the late 6th century and has persisted (with interludes of division) until the present day. There are no equivalents of the local standard literary languages that developed in the numerous independent states of Europe. Chinese dialectologists have divided
3420-541: The Uralic languages . The Sami languages , sometimes mistaken for a single language, are a dialect continuum, albeit with some disconnections like between North , Skolt and Inari Sami . The Baltic-Finnic languages spoken around the Gulf of Finland form a dialect continuum. Thus, although Finnish and Estonian are considered as separate languages, there is no definite linguistic border or isogloss that separates them. This
3510-519: The Zambezi River and consequently a route to the east coast of the continent and German East Africa . The route was later found not to be navigable because of the location of the Victoria Falls , one of the world's largest waterfalls, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) east of the Caprivi Strip, and because of more waterfalls downstream such as Kariba Gorge and Cahora Bassa . Within Namibia,
3600-588: The modern vernacular dialects (or languages) branched from ancient Arabic dialects, from North Western Africa through Egypt , Sudan , and the Fertile Crescent to the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq . The dialects use different analogues from the Arabic language inventory and have been influenced by different substrate and superstrate languages. Adjacent dialects are mutually understandable to
3690-430: The mora as the basic unit of phonological structure. Tone sandhi processes are common in Khwe and related languages. Khoe click inventories generally combine four anterior constrictions types with nine to eleven anterior constrictions. The exact size of the click inventory in Khwe is unclear. Köhler established an inventory of 36 click phonemes, from combinations of four influxes /ǀ ǂ ǃ ǁ/, and nine effluxes (only five on
Khwe language - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-576: The Caprivi Strip and the island of Heligoland in the North Sea . The river later proved unnavigable and inaccessible to the Indian Ocean due to the location of the Victoria Falls and more falls, a fact that was possibly already known to the British side during the negotiations. Caprivi itself was remote and inaccessible during the rainy season, and the Germans did not find use for it. After
3870-556: The Caprivi Strip are Bwabwata National Park , Mudumu National Park and Nkasa Rupara National Park . Local communities have organised themselves into communal area conservancies and community forests. People work closely with the Namibian Government to jointly manage natural resources through several programmes set up between the Namibian Government and various donor parties. Caprivi was named after German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi (in office 1890–1894), who negotiated
3960-655: The Continental West Germanic group, and so are not commonly classified as dialects of a common language. Focusing instead on the local Romance lects that pre-existed the establishment of national or regional standard languages, all evidence and principles point to Romania continua as having been, and to varying extents in some areas still being, what Charles Hockett called an L-complex, i.e. an unbroken chain of local differentiation such that, in principle and with appropriate caveats, intelligibility (due to sharing of features) attenuates with distance. This
4050-480: The Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi dialect continuum, with around 117,410 speakers. The languages can be roughly classified into nine groups, from west to east: Various Cree languages are used as languages of instruction and taught as subjects: Plains Cree, Eastern Cree, Montagnais, etc. Mutual intelligibility between some dialects can be low. There is no accepted standard dialect. Ojibwa (Chippewa)
4140-463: The Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum, with distinct n/y/l/r/ð dialect characteristics and noticeable west–east k/č(ch) axis, the Ojibwe continuum is marked with vowel syncope along the west–east axis and ∅/n along the north–south axis. Caprivi Strip The Caprivi Strip , also known simply as Caprivi , is a geographic salient protruding from the northeastern corner of Namibia . It
4230-532: The Dutch and German standards do not show a high degree of mutual intelligibility when spoken and only partially so when written. One study concluded that, when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German
4320-528: The Institut für Afrikanistik at the University of Cologne , designed an orthography of Khwe in which he published three volumes of texts and grammatical sketches, based on observations of language and culture made over 30 years of visits to Namibia. As Köhler's orthography was designed for academic purposes, his volumes were published in German and French, and therefore inaccessible to the Khwe themselves. Köhler never made an attempt to teach literacy to members of
4410-510: The Khwe language. For example, "to write", ǁgàràá , was formerly used to describe an "activity the community members perform during healing ceremonies". The semantic broadening of word meanings has also permeated other parts of Khwe-speaking culture, such as food, animals, and other forms of naming that some argue have introduced nonconformity. Noting this, the original meanings of these words is still understood and used during Khwe cultural practices. While Khwe-speakers were in minimal contact with
4500-456: The Levant and Mesopotamia. Northeastern Neo-Aramaic , including distinct varieties spoken by both Jews and Christians, is a dialect continuum although greatly disrupted by population displacement during the twentieth century. The Persian language in its various varieties ( Tajiki and Dari ), is representative of a dialect continuum. The divergence of Tajik was accelerated by the shift from
4590-633: The Okavango and Zambezi regions migrated to the area during the Bantu Migration , and came in contact with the native Khoe speakers in the area. Several Bantu languages of this area adapted the clicks of the Khoe languages and integrated them into their phonology , in a reduced manner through paralexification. Some scholars argue that the "contact-induced" changes in Bantu languages have contributed to
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#17327661252084680-616: The Penduka Declaration on the Standardisation of Ju and Khoe Languages, which recommends Khwe be classified as part of the Central Khoe-San family, a cluster language comprising Khwe, ǁAni and Buga. Khwe is the preferred spelling as recommended by the Penduka Declaration, but the language is also referred to as Kxoe , Khoe-dam and Khwedam . Barakwena, Barakwengo and Mbarakwena refer to speakers of
4770-643: The Perso-Arabic alphabet to a Cyrillic one under the Soviets. Western dialects of Persian show greater influence from Arabic and Oghuz Turkic languages, but Dari and Tajik tend to preserve many classical features in grammar and vocabulary. Also the Tat language , a dialect of Persian, is spoken in Azerbaijan. Turkic languages are best described as a dialect continuum. Geographically this continuum starts at
4860-582: The South African government in Pretoria until 1980, when its administration was transferred to South West Africa's administration in Windhoek. In the late 20th century, the Caprivi Strip attracted attention when Namibia and Botswana took a long-standing dispute over its southern boundary to the International Court of Justice . The core of the territorial dispute concerned which channel of
4950-534: The Strip is divided administratively between the Kavango East and Zambezi regions. It is crossed by the Okavango River . The Cuando River forms part of its border with Botswana, and the Zambezi River forms a part of its border with Zambia. The width of the strip varies from about 32 km (20 mi) to 105 km (65 mi). Its largest settlement is Katima Mulilo , located at the point where
5040-432: The Turkic languages are very close to one another, and they share basic features such as SOV word order, vowel harmony and agglutination . Many of the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indian subcontinent form a dialect continuum. What is called " Hindi " in India is frequently Standard Hindi , the Sanskritized register of the colloquial Hindustani spoken in the Delhi area, the other register being Urdu . However,
5130-425: The Zambezi reaches the Strip. When Namibia was a German colony, the Caprivi Strip was known in German as Caprivizipfel . Before colonisation, it was known as Itenge . During a short-lived secession attempt around the year 2000, the name Itenge was used by the separatists. It is also sometimes called the Okavango Panhandle . Inhabitants of the Caprivi Strip speak a number of African languages, mostly members of
5220-475: The acquisition of the land in an 1890 exchange with the United Kingdom. Caprivi arranged for the Caprivi strip to be annexed to German South West Africa in order to give Germany access to the Zambezi River and a route to Africa's east coast, where the colony of German East Africa (now part of Tanzania ) was situated. The transfer of territory was a part of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890, in which Germany gave up its interest in Zanzibar in return for
5310-451: The active voice suffix. Converb constructions may consist of two or more verbs, only one of which takes the TAM marking. In opposition to the postulated linguistic universal regarding the primacy of the visual domain in the hierarchy of the verbs of perception, Khwe's most widely applied verb of perception is ǁám̀ , 'taste, smell, touch'. Khwe has three verbs of perception, the other two being mṹũ 'see', and kóḿ 'hear', but ǁám̀ , which
5400-627: The alveolar), as well as a borrowed voiced alveolar click , /ǃᶢ/. Khwe is the only language to have a pre-nasalized voiced click. There are three tones in Khwe: high /V́/, mid /V̄/, low /V̀/. Long vowels and diphthongs have eight tones (missing only *mid–low as a combination). Khwe is a suffixing language, and thus has a rich inventory of head-marking suffixes on nouns and verbs. Verbs take tense-aspect-mood suffixes (TAMs), marking for causative , applicative , comitative , locative , passive , reflexive and reciprocal . Nouns are marked with person-gender-number suffixes (PGNs). Gender division in Khwe
5490-459: The area, and through their linguistic and cultural exchanges, both languages were fundamentally altered. The morphology , syntax , and phonology sections on this page further discuss the changes occurred, and how it has influenced contemporary Khwe. Today, an estimated 3,700 Khwe speakers live in Namibia, with the vast majority residing in the western region of the Zambezi Region . The largest known Khwe settlements are Mutc'iku, located adjacent to
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#17327661252085580-451: The basis of extralinguistic features (such as writing systems or the former western frontier of the Soviet Union), the North Slavic continuum is split into East and West Slavic continua. From the perspective of linguistic features alone, only two Slavic (dialect) continua can be distinguished, namely North and South, separated from each other by a band of non-Slavic languages: Romanian, Hungarian and German. The North Slavic continuum covers
5670-428: The community. Attempts to teach the Khwe orthography to first language speakers were not made until 1996, by scholars of the institute who took up Köhler's work. At the request and with the consultation of the Khwe, the orthography was revised and simplified by Matthias Brenzinger and Mathias Schladt between 1996 and 1997. A collection of Khwe folktales was published in 1999 by Christa Kilian-Hatz and David Naude, using
5760-486: The complete loss of its grammatical case systems and adoption of features more commonly found among analytic languages . The barrier between East South Slavic and West South Slavic is historical and natural, caused primarily by a one-time geographical distance between speakers. The two varieties started diverging early on ( c. 11th century CE ) and evolved separately ever since without major mutual influence, as evidenced by distinguishable Old Slavonic , while
5850-412: The continent's largest language branches. The Romance area spanned much of the territory of the Roman Empire but was split into western and eastern portions by the Slav Migrations into the Balkans in the 7th and 8th centuries. The Slavic area was in turn split by the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Norwegian , Danish and Swedish dialects comprise
5940-458: The continuum which historically connected the Dutch, Frisian and German languages has largely disintegrated. Fragmentary areas of the Dutch-German border in which language change is more gradual than in other sections or a higher degree of mutual intelligibility is present still exist, such as the Aachen - Kerkrade area, but the historical chain in which dialects were only divided by minor isoglosses and negligible differences in vocabulary has seen
6030-467: The east it extends to the Republic of Tuva , the Xinjiang autonomous region in Western China with the Uyghur language and into Mongolia with Khoton . The entire territory is inhabited by Turkic speaking peoples. There are three varieties of Turkic geographically outside the continuum: Chuvash , Yakut and Dolgan . They have been geographically separated from the other Turkic languages for an extensive period of time, and Chuvash language stands out as
6120-428: The eastern Caprivi Strip, held that not only was the island part of the original German–British agreement, but generations of inhabitants had used it for seasonal grazing, for reed-gathering, and as a burial site. In December 1999, the International Court of Justice ruled that the main channel, and hence the international boundary, lay to the north of the island, thus making the island part of Botswana. The Caprivi Strip
6210-497: The general language shift away from Khoe languages, such as Khwe, to Bantu languages because of the increased familiarity in phonology. The Khoe mainly occupy the Okavango Delta of Botswana. Specifically, Khwe speakers primarily live in the western Caprivi area in Namibia, however, the entirety of the Khoe population occupies a much larger geography. Khwe speakers in the western Caprivi are somewhat distant, lexically , from other similar Khoe languages, such as Damara . According to
6300-450: The great Bantu Migration, which occurred about 5,000 years ago. In this migration, the Bantu speaking population of West and Central Africa , around the Nigeria - Cameroon borderlands, migrated to Southern Africa , and in this process, encountered the native Khwe population. While the Khwe migrated into the Caprivi and greater Kavango-Zambezi region after the Damara, they were certainly there 5,000 years ago when Bantu speakers migrated to
6390-403: The islands of Rathlin , Arran or Kintyre and also in the Irish counties of Antrim , Londonderry and Down . The current Goidelic speaking areas of Ireland are also separated by extinct dialects but remain mutually intelligible. Arabic is a standard case of diglossia . The standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic , is based on the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an , while
6480-474: The language and are considered pejorative. Other names and spellings of ǁAni include ǀ᪶Anda, Gǀanda, Handá, Gani and Tanne with various combinations of -kwe/khwe/khoe and -dam. The Khwe-speaking population has resided around the "bush" in areas of sub-Saharan Africa for several thousand years. Testimonies from living Khwe speakers note that their ancestors have come from the Tsodilo Hills , in
6570-476: The local varieties into a number of dialect groups, largely based on phonological developments in comparison with Middle Chinese . Most of these groups are found in the rugged terrain of the southeast, reflecting the greater variation in this area, particularly in Fujian . Each of these groups contains numerous mutually unintelligible varieties. Moreover, in many cases the transitions between groups are smooth, as
6660-465: The local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. A standard variety together with its dependent varieties is commonly considered a "language", with the dependent varieties called "dialects" of the language, even if the standard is mutually intelligible with another standard from the same continuum. The Scandinavian languages , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish , are often cited as examples. Conversely,
6750-517: The major Romance languages have been moving toward extinction , as their speakers have switched to varieties closer to the more prestigious national standards. That has been most notable in France, owing to the French government's refusal to recognise minority languages , but it has occurred to some extent in all Western Romance speaking countries. Language change has also threatened the survival of stateless languages with existing literary standards, such as Occitan. The Romance languages of Italy are
6840-541: The majority of this community relocated to Platfontein, outside Kimberley , following the Schmidtsdrift Community Land Claim. Khwe has 70 phonemic consonants , including 36 clicks , as well as 25 vowel phonemes, including diphthongs and nasalised vowels. Khwe's tone system has been analysed as containing 9 syllabic tones (3 register and 6 contour), although more recent proposed analyses identify only 3 lexical tones, high, mid and low, with
6930-630: The most divergent from other Turkic languages. There are also Gagauz speakers in Moldavia and Urum speakers in Georgia . The Turkic continuum makes internal genetic classification of the languages problematic. Chuvash , Khalaj and Yakut are generally classified as significantly distinct, but the remaining Turkic languages are quite similar, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility between not only geographically adjacent varieties but also among some varieties some distance apart. Structurally,
7020-559: The national standard of Pakistan , while Hindus regard the same speech as Hindi , an official standard of India . Even so, the Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages and Urdu is among them. During the time of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia , a standard was developed from local varieties of Eastern South Slavic , within a continuum with Torlakian to
7110-451: The negative hortative and jussive constructions, in which vé can also be used. Generally, Khoisan languages have an SV constituent order. Central Khoisan languages have a dominant AOV constituent order , including Khwe, though OAV order is used more frequently in casual conversation and storytelling. Khwe lacks a separate class of adjectives . Pronouns , nouns and verbs , especially state verbs, can be used attributively. Khwe has
7200-432: The nonstandard dialects that comprise dialect continua, making the boundaries ever more abrupt and well-defined. Dialectologists record variation across a dialect continuum using maps of various features collected in a linguistic atlas , beginning with an atlas of German dialects by Georg Wenker (from 1888), based on a postal survey of schoolmasters. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France (1902–10) pioneered
7290-544: The north and Bulgarian to the east. The standard was based on varieties that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian , it is the national standard of North Macedonia , but viewed by Bulgarians as a dialect of Bulgarian. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic , Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family ,
7380-600: The outsiders until 1970, there was limited interaction between the Khwe and missionaries in early and mid-twentieth centuries. The missionaries, for the most part, failed to convert the Khwe-speaking population. The introduction to missionaries, however, introduced Western culture and languages, in addition to Bantu languages. Despite the influence of Bantu languages in Khwe speakers education, historically, Khwe, and other Khoisan languages , have had linguistic influences on Bantu languages. The Bantu language speakers of
7470-471: The presence of the Victoria Falls downstream and continued political uncertainty in the region have made such use of the Caprivi Strip difficult. However, it may be used for ecotourism in the future. Within Namibia the Caprivi Strip provides significant habitat for the critically endangered African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus ). It is a corridor for African elephant moving from Botswana and Namibia into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. National parks found in
7560-427: The previous dialect continuum. Examples include the boundaries between Dutch and German , between Czech , Slovak and Polish , and between Belarusian and Ukrainian . The choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. Examples of controversies are regions such as the disputed territory of Kashmir , in which local Muslims usually regard their language as Urdu ,
7650-546: The revised orthography along with interlinear and free translations. Kilian-Hatz also published a dictionary of Khwe, although this is written in the linguistic orthography which uses symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet in place of the Latin script use for the applied orthography. The revised orthography has not been granted official status in Namibia. The Khwe language is not taught as
7740-680: The speakers of the two with each other. Likewise in Serbia , the Torlakian dialect differs significantly from Standard Serbian. Serbian is a Western South Slavic standard, but Torlakian is largely transitional with the Eastern South Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian). Collectively, the Torlakian dialects with Macedonian and Bulgarian share many grammatical features that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, such as
7830-516: The term Hindi is also used for the different dialects from Bihar to Rajasthan and, more widely, some of the Eastern and Northern dialects are sometimes grouped under Hindi. The Indo-Aryan Prakrits also gave rise to languages like Gujarati , Assamese , Maithili , Bengali , Odia , Nepali , Marathi , Konkani and Punjabi . Chinese consists of hundreds of mutually unintelligible local varieties . The differences are similar to those within
7920-401: The use of a trained fieldworker. These atlases typically consist of display maps , each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include interpretive maps , showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss , a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate. In
8010-442: The western dialect of common Old Slavic was still spoken across the modern Serbo-Croatian area in the 12th and early 13th centuries. An intermediate dialect linking western and eastern variations inevitably came into existence over time – Torlakian – spoken across a wide radius on which the tripoint of Bulgaria , North Macedonia and Serbia is relatively pivotal. The other major language family in Europe besides Indo-European are
8100-540: Was in 1970 at a settlement in Mùtcʼiku, a settlement proximate the Okavango River. Some argue that this put the language in a state of decline, as younger populations learned Bantu languages, such as Tswana . Khwe is learned locally as a second language in Namibia, but the language is being lost in Botswana as speakers shift to Tswana. It is also argued that this has led to a semantic broadening in meaning of words in
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