Kx'a languages
| Kx'a | |
|---|---|
| Ju–ǂHoan | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Angola, Namibia, and Botswana |
| Linguistic classification: | One of the world's primary language families (traditionally considered Khoisan) |
| Subdivisions: |
!Kung (Juu)
|
The Kx'a languages, also called Ju–ǂHoan, are a recently established family linking the ǂHoan language isolate with the !Kung (Juu) dialect cluster, a relationship that had been suspected for a decade.[1] Along with the Tuu languages, they are one of two language families indigenous to southern Africa.
- ǂHoan (60 speakers, Botswana. Moribund.)
- !Kung (also !Xun or Ju, formerly Northern Khoisan) is a single dialect cluster. (≈50,000 speakers.) Well known dialects are Ekoka !Kung, ǃʼOǃKung, Juǀʼhoan, and ǂKxʼauǁʼein.
ǂHoan had previously been lumped in with the Tuu languages, perhaps over confusion with its name, but the only thing they have in common are typological features such as their bilabial clicks.
Heine & Honken (2010) coined the term Kx'a for the family as a replacement for the rather inaccessible compound Ju–ǂHoan (easily confused with the Juǀʼhoan language), after the word [kxʼà] 'earth, ground', which is shared by the two branches of the family, though also by neighboring languages such as Kwadi.
[edit] Features
Heine & Honken (2010) reconstruct six click families for Kx'a: the five that occur in the most conservative dialects of !Kung, plus the bilabial clicks of ǂHoan. Bilabial clicks became dental in !Xun; and retroflex clicks became lateral in ǂHoan and northern !Xun, alveolar in southern !Xun, and were retained only in central !Xun. However, Starostin (2003)[2] argues that the bilabial clicks are a secondary development in ǂHoan. He cites the ǂHoan words for 'one' and 'two', /ŋ͡ʘũ/ and /ʘoa/, where no other Khoisan language has a labial consonant of any kind in its words for these numerals. This would of course also be explained by their loss of labial articulation in !Xun; Heine & Honken report they could find no way to avoid postulating a series of labial clicks for the protolanguage.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Heine, B. and Honken, H. 2010. "The Kx'a Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy". Journal of Asian and African Studies (Tokyo), 79, p. 5–36.
- ^ Starostin G. (2003) A lexicostatistical approach towards reconstructing Proto-Khoisan, page 22. Mother Tongue, vol. VIII.
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