!Xóõ language

!Xóõ is a Khoisan language with 141 phonemes. These include many clicks.

It is spoken in Botswana and Namibia by anywhere from 3,200 to 4,200 people (year 1995). Its SIL code is NMN.

User Breakdown

Botswana: 3,000 to 4,000
Namibia: approx. 200

Relative

!Xóõ belongs to the Southern African branch of the Khoisan language phylum. It is categorized in the Southern subbranch of the Southern African Khoisan languages. Its closest relative is =/Hua.

Phonemes

Clicks

There are about 80 clicks in it, with 5 basic clicks and 17 or so accompaniments, including the rare uvular closure as opposed to the velar closure of most clicks. The five basic clicks are the bilabial, the dental, the postdental, the palatal, and the lateral click. Clicks fall into two main classes depending on the sound made by the burst when they are articulated: clicks with abrupt, short bursts and those with long, high-frequency bursts.

Vowels

There are 5 vowels, /a e i o u/, all of which can be nasalized. Only /a o u/ can be breathy voiced, pharyngealized, or strident voiced. Vowels can also be glottalized. There are 4 tones: high(á), mid(ā), low(à), and mid-falling(â).

Non-click consonants

Click consonants

Vowels can vary in a number of ways, including pharyngealization and strident voice. Strident and pharyngealized vowels are distinguished in !Xóõ, with the strident ones being both phonologically pharyngealized and breathy-voiced. !Xóõ is a tonal language and the ó in !Xóõ is high tone.

!Xóõ is a Subject Verb Object language. It is prepositional, and genitives, adjectives, relative clauses and even numbers come after the nouns to which they apply. Reduplication is used to form causatives. Much like most Indo-European languages, !Xóõ always puts the question word at the beginning of the sentence.

The linguist Anthony Traill has done extensive research into this language.

Dialects

Active

• Auni or /Auni or /Auo
• Kakia or Masarwa
• Ki/hazi
• Ng/u//en or Nu//en or /U//en or Ng/u/ei or /Nu//en or //U//en
• Nusan or Ng/usan or Nu-san or Noosan
• Xatia or Katia or Kattea or Khatia or Vaalpens or /Kusi or /Eikusi
• !Kwi

Extinct

• N/gamani
• /Nu//en
• /'Auni
• Ki/hazi

Other

• There is a dictionary of !Xóõ available, written by Anthony Traill.

External link

• Ethnologue Report for !Xóõ