32-397: ǂAakhoe (ǂĀkhoe) and Haiǁom are part of the Khoekhoe dialect continuum and are spoken mainly in Namibia . In the sparsely available material on the subject, ǂAkhoe and Haiǁom have been considered a variant of the Khoekhoe language, as separate dialects (Haacke et al. 1997), as virtual synonyms of a single variant (Heikinnen, n.d.), or as "a way in which some Haiǁom speak their language in
64-604: A Juu language , later shifted to Khoekhoe. The name for the speakers, Khoekhoen , is from the word khoe "person", with reduplication and the suffix -n to indicate the general plural. Georg Friedrich Wreede was the first European to study the language, after arriving in ǁHui!gaeb (later Cape Town) in 1659. Khoekhoe is a national language in Namibia. In Namibia and South Africa, state-owned broadcasting corporations produce and broadcast radio programmes in Khoekhoe. It
96-421: A click sound before the x sound (which is like a Scottish or German ch ), followed by a long nasal u vowel with a high rising tone. The term ǃKung , or variants thereof, is typically used when considering the dialects to constitute a single language; Ju tends to be used when considering them as a small language family. ǃKung is also sometimes used for the northern/northwestern dialects, as opposed to
128-521: A ) Khoekhoe has four definite articles : ti , si , sa , ǁî . These definite articles can be combined with PGN markers. Examples from Haacke (2013): There are three clause markers, ge ( declarative ), kha ( interrogative ), and ko/km ( assertive ). These markers appear in matrix clauses , and appear after the subject. Following is a sample text in the Khoekhoe language. Juu languages ǃKung / ˈ k ʊ ŋ / KUUNG ( ǃXun ), also known as Ju ( / ˈ dʒ uː / JOO ),
160-530: A decade living in precarious conditions, the post-Apartheid government bought and donated land for a permanent settlement at Platfontein, near Schmidtsdrift. Only Juǀʼhoan is written, and it is not sufficiently intelligible with the Northwestern dialects for the same literature to be used for both. The better-known ǃKung dialects are Tsumkwe Juǀʼhoan , Ekoka ǃKung , ǃʼOǃKung , and ǂKxʼauǁʼein . Scholars distinguish between eleven and fifteen dialects, but
192-504: A macron, as in ā /ʔàa̋/ 'to cry, weep'; these constitute two moras (two tone-bearing units). A glottal stop is not written at the beginning of a word (where it is predictable), but it is transcribed with a hyphen in compound words, such as gao-aob /kȁòʔòȁp/ 'chief'. The clicks are written with the Lepsius letters that were later adopted as IPA symbols. The basic (tenuis) clicks are: Sometimes ASCII characters are substituted, e.g.
224-409: A nasal ( /ń ḿ/ ) than on mid or low vowels ( /é á ó/ ). The tones combine into a limited number of 'tone melodies' ( word tones ), which have sandhi forms in certain syntactic environments. The most important melodies, in their citation and main sandhi forms, are as follows: Within a phrase, lexical words receive greater stress than grammatical words . Within a word, the first syllable receives
256-422: A o u/ and nasal /ĩ ã ũ/ . /u/ is strongly rounded, /o/ only slightly so. /a/ is the only vowel with notable allophony; it is pronounced [ə] before /i/ or /u/ . Nama has been described as having three or four tones , /á, ā, à/ or /a̋, á, à, ȁ/ , which may occur on each mora (vowels and final nasal consonants ). The high tone is higher when it occurs on one of the high vowels ( /í ú/ ) or on
288-484: A total of 12 vowel phonemes. These can be divided into monophthongs and diphthongs, with a further subdivision into oral and nasal pronunciation. Khoekhoe language Khoekhoe ( / ˈ k ɔɪ k ɔɪ / KOY -koy ; Khoekhoegowab , Khoekhoe pronunciation: [k͡xʰo̜͡ek͡xʰo̜͡egowab] ), also known by the ethnic terms Nama ( / ˈ n ɑː m ə / NAH -mə ; Namagowab ), Damara ( ǂNūkhoegowab ), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot ,
320-535: A unique kinship and naming system, frequent storytelling, and the use of a landscape-term system for spatial orientation. The Haiǁom live in the savannah of northern Namibia, in an area stretching from the edges of Etosha salt pan and the northern white farming areas as far as the Angola border – and perhaps beyond – in the north and Kavango in the east. According to Ethnologue there were 52,000 Haiǁom speakers in 2016. In theory ǂAkhoe possesses free word order, with
352-517: Is a dialect continuum (language complex) spoken in Namibia , Botswana , and Angola by the ǃKung people , constituting two or three languages. Together with the ǂʼAmkoe language , ǃKung forms the Kxʼa language family . ǃKung constituted one of the branches of the putative Khoisan language family, and was called Northern Khoisan in that scenario, but the unity of Khoisan has never been demonstrated and
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#1732773404593384-421: Is also difficult to hear when not between vowels, so to foreign ears, it may sound like a longer but less raspy version of the contour clicks. Tindall notes that European learners almost invariably pronounce the lateral clicks by placing the tongue against the side teeth and that this articulation is "harsh and foreign to the native ear". The Namaqua instead cover the whole of the palate with the tongue and produce
416-659: Is estimated that only around 167,000 speakers of Khoekhoe remain in Africa, which makes it an endangered language . In 2019, the University of Cape Town ran a series of short courses teaching the language, and 21 September 2020 launched its new Khoi and San Centre. An undergraduate degree programme is being planned to be rolled out in coming years. Modern scholars generally see three dialects: They are distinct enough that they might be considered two or three distinct languages. There are 5 vowel qualities, found as oral /i e
448-528: Is now regarded as spurious. Nonetheless, the anthropological term "Khoisan" has been retained as an umbrella term for click languages in general. ǃKung is famous for its many clicks , such as the ǃ in its name, and has some of the most complex inventories of both consonants and vowels in the world. It also has tone and nasalization . For a description, see Juǀʼhoan . To pronounce ǃXuun (pronounced [ǃ͡χũː˦˥] in Western ǃKung/ǃXuun) one makes
480-462: Is the most widespread of the non- Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use of click consonants and therefore were formerly classified as Khoisan , a grouping now recognized as obsolete. It belongs to the Khoe language family , and is spoken in Namibia , Botswana , and South Africa primarily by three ethnic groups: Namakhoen , ǂNūkhoen , and Haiǁomkhoen . The Haiǁom, who had spoken
512-626: Is this?" Mãa is an interrogative used freely in Haiǁom, the subject |ũ takes the suffix -ba , which is a PGN marker denoting the 3rd person masculine singular. The indirect object nde , a demonstrative, follows the noun, and is inflected in concord with the head noun. Compound structures are highly productive in ǂAkhoe and vary widely in the combination of word categories. The possibilities include: noun+noun, noun+adverb or vice versa, noun+adjective or vice versa, adjective+adjective, adjective+adverb or vice versa, adjective+suffix, or multiple combinations of
544-676: The hash (#) in place of ǂ. Nama has a subject–object–verb word order, three nouns classes ( masculine/gu-class, feminine/di-class and neuter/n-class ) and three grammatical numbers ( singular, dual and plural ). Pronominal enclitics are used to mark person, gender, and number on the noun phrases . The PGN ( person - gender - number ) markers are enclitic pronouns that attach to noun phrases . The PGN markers distinguish first, second, and third person , masculine, feminine, and neuter gender , and singular, dual, and plural number . The PGN markers can be divided into nominative , object , and oblique paradigms. (PGN + i ) (PGN +
576-455: The subject–object–verb order (SOV) being the dominant preference. In keeping with the typological profile of SOV languages, adjectives, demonstratives and numerals generally precede nouns. Nouns are marked by person–gender–number (PGN) markers. Adjectives, demonstratives and numerals all agree with their head noun. Mãa what |ũ-ba colour- 3SGM nde-ba? this- 3SGM Mãa |ũ-ba nde-ba? what colour-3SGM this-3SGM "What colour
608-513: The Khoekhoe of the time had a velar lateral ejective affricate , [kʟ̝̊ʼ] , a common realisation or allophone of /kxʼ/ in languages with clicks. This sound no longer occurs in Khoekhoe but remains in its cousin Korana. The clicks are doubly articulated consonants . Each click consists of one of four primary articulations or "influxes" and one of five secondary articulation or "effluxes". The combination results in 20 phonemes. The aspiration on
640-691: The Southeastern dialects. Sands (2010) classifies ǃKung dialects into four clusters, with the first two being quite close: ǂKxʼauǁʼein was too poorly attested to classify at the time. A preliminary classification of the ǃXũũ and Žuǀ'hõasi dialects by Snyman (1997): The ancestral language, Proto-Juu or Proto-ǃXuun, had five places of click articulation: Dental , alveolar , palatal , alveolar lateral , and retroflex ( *‼ ). The retroflex clicks have dropped out of Southeastern dialects such as Juǀʼhoan, but remain in Central ǃKung. In ǀʼAkhwe (Ekoka),
672-519: The above. Comparing Heikinnen's and Widlock's contribution to ǂAkhoe phonology with the more general and theoretical phonological work of Peter Ladefoged (1996), ǂAkhoe can be said to have 47 phonemes. However, an in-depth phonological sketch of the language might show other results where the vowels are concerned. There are 34 consonants in ǂAkhoe, 20 of which are clicks produced with an ingressive airstream, and 14 of which are pulmonic consonants produced with an egressive airstream. ǂAkhoe Haiǁom has
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#1732773404593704-414: The aspirated clicks is often light but is 'raspier' than the aspirated nasal clicks, with a sound approaching the ch of Scottish loch . The glottalised clicks are clearly voiceless due to the hold before the release, and they are transcribed as simple voiceless clicks in the traditional orthography. The nasal component is not audible in initial position; the voiceless nasal component of the aspirated clicks
736-473: The boundaries are unclear. There is a clear distinction between North/Northwest vs South/Southeast, but also a diverse Central group that is poorly attested. Heine & Honken (2010) classify the 11 traditionally numbered dialects into three branches of what they consider a single language: Heine & König (2015 , p. 324) state that speakers of all Northwestern dialects "understand one another to quite some extent" but that they do not understand any of
768-461: The consonants b d g are used for words with one of the lower tone melodies and p t k for one of the higher tone melodies; they are otherwise pronounced the same. W is only used between vowels, though it may be replaced with b or p according to tone. Overt tone marking is otherwise generally omitted. Nasal vowels are written with a circumflex. All nasal vowels are long, as in hû /hũ̀ṹ/ 'seven'. Long (double) vowels are otherwise written with
800-434: The form CV or CN, with any vowel or tone, where C may be any consonant but a click, and the latter cannot be NN. Suffixes and a third mora of a root, may have the form CV, CN, V, N, with any vowel or tone; there are also three C-only suffixes, -p 1m.sg, -ts 2m.sg, -s 2/3f.sg. There have been several orthographies used for Nama. A Khoekhoegowab dictionary (Haacke 2000) uses the modern standard. In standard orthography,
832-900: The mid–late twentieth century, the northern dialects were widespread in southern and central Angola. However, most ǃKung fled the Angolan Civil War to Namibia (primarily to the Caprivi Strip ), where they were recruited into the South African Defence Force special forces against the Angolan Army and SWAPO . At the end of the Border War , more than one thousand fighters and their families were relocated to Schmidtsdrift in South Africa amid uncertainty over their future in Namibia. After more than
864-439: The most stress. Subsequent syllables receive less and less stress and are spoken more and more quickly. Nama has 31 consonants: 20 clicks and only 11 non-clicks. Orthography in brackets. Between vowels, /p/ is pronounced [β] and /t/ is pronounced [ɾ] . The affricate series is strongly aspirated, and may be analysed phonemically as aspirated stops; in the related Korana they are [tʰ, kʰ] . Beach (1938) reported that
896-488: The northern part of Namibia" (Widlock, n.d.). ǂAkhoe especially is intermediate between the Khoekhoe and Kalahari branches of the Khoe language family . The Haiǁom are traditionally hunter-gatherers , and many aspects of this traditional culture have been preserved in spite of the political, economic, and linguistic marginalisation of the group. Characteristical features of their culture include healing trance dances, hunting magic, intensive usage of wild plant and insect food,
928-623: The reduced number of nasal vowels, nasal sequences are /ĩĩ ãã ũũ ãĩ [ə̃ĩ] ãũ [ə̃ũ] õã ũĩ/ . Sequences ending in a high vowel ( /ii uu ai au ui ĩĩ ũũ ãĩ ãũ ũĩ/ ) are pronounced more quickly than others ( /ee aa oo ae ao oa oe ãã õã/ ), more like diphthongs and long vowels than like vowel sequences in hiatus. The tones are realised as contours. CVCV words tend to have the same vowel sequences, though there are many exceptions. The two tones are also more distinct. Vowel-nasal sequences are restricted to non-front vowels: /am an om on um un/ . Their tones are also realised as contours. Grammatical particles have
960-576: The sound "as far back in the palate as possible". Lexical root words consist of two or rarely three moras , in the form CVCV(C), CVV(C), or CVN(C). (The initial consonant is required.) The middle consonant may only be w r m n ( w is b~p and r is d~t ), while the final consonant (C) may only be p, s, ts . Each mora carries tone, but the second may only be high or medium, for six tone "melodies": HH, MH, LH, HM, MM, LM. Oral vowel sequences in CVV are /ii ee aa oo uu ai [əi] ae ao au [əu] oa oe ui/ . Due to
992-516: The well documented Juǀʼhoan dialects in the south(east); however speakers of nearly all dialects call themselves ǃKung . The spellings ǃXun and ǃXuun seen in recent literature are related to the Juǀʼhoan form spelled ǃXʼu(u)n in the 1975 orthography, or ǃKu(u)n in current orthography. Additional spellings are ǃHu, ǃKhung, ǃKu, Kung, Qxü, ǃung, ǃXo, Xû, ǃXû, Xun, ǃXung, ǃXũũ, ǃXun, ʗhũ: , and additional spellings of Ju are Dzu, Juu, Zhu . If
ǂAakhoe dialect - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-600: The ǃKung dialects are counted together, they would make the third-most-populous click language after Khoekhoe and Sandawe . The most populous ǃKung variety, Juǀʼhoan, is perhaps tied for third place with Naro . Estimates vary, but there are probably around 15,000 speakers. Counting is difficult because speakers are scattered on farms, interspersed with speakers of other languages, but Brenzinger (2011) counts 9,000 in Namibia, 2,000 in Botswana, 3,700 in South Africa and 1,000 in Angola (down from perhaps 8,000 in 1975). Until
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