Ekoka !Kung

Ekoka !Kung
Kung-Ekoka Western !Xun
Spoken in	South Africa, Namibia, Angola
Native speakers	perhaps 6,900  (2000)
Language family	Kx'a !Kung Western Ekoka !Kung
Dialects	ǀʼAkhwe
Language codes
ISO 639-3	knw

Ekoka !Kung (Ekoka !Xung, Ekoka-!Xû, Kung-Ekoka) is a variety of the !Kung dialect cluster, spoken originally in northern Namibia and southern Angola, but since the Angolan civil war, also in South Africa.

Dialects

Heine & Honken (2010) place Ekoka in the Northern–Western branch of !Xun (!Kung), where Ekoka is equivalent to the Western branch. They distinguish three varieties:

• Western !Xun (Kung-Ekoka)
  • Tsintsabis (natively !xūún; spoken in Tsintsabis, Tsumeb district, N Namibia)
  • |Akhwe (natively !xūún, ǀʼākhòè !xòān "Kwanyama !Xun"; spoken in Eenhana, N Namibia)
  • [no name] (natively !xūún, !ʼālè !xòān "Valley !Xun"; spoken in Eenhana district, N Namibia)

Sands et al. place it in its own branch, which they call North-Central Ju:

• North-Central Ju (Namibia, between the Ovambo River and the Angolan border, around the tributaries of the Okavango River east of Rundu to the Etosha Pan)
  • Tsintsabis
  • ǀʼAkhwe
  • Okongo
  • Ovambo
  • Mpunguvlei

Phonology

Ekoka !Kung has a similar sound system to Juǀʼhoansi. However, instead of a series of palatal clickss, [ǂ] etc, Ekoka !Kung has a series of fricated alveolar clicks which have an s-like release and historically derive from them. These are provisionally transcribed ǃ͡s, etc., and behave similarly to palatal clicks in terms of the back-vowel constraint.

In addition to the twelve 'accompaniments' of clicks in Juǀʼhoansi, Ekoka has preglottalized nasal clicks, such as ʔᵑǂ. These are not common, but are also found in Taa and ǂHoan.

References

• Bernd Heine & Christa König, 2010. The !Xun language: A dialect grammar. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.