ǂHõã language

ǂHõã or ǂHoan, more accurately ǂQhôã, is a Khoisan language of Botswana. It appears to be distantly related to the Juu languages in a family called Juu-ǂHoan.

Note that there is a dialect of the unrelated Tuu language ǃXóõ that is also called ǂHua, or sometimes Western ǂHuan. In this case ǂHõã proper may be called Eastern ǂHuan.

ǂHõã is moribund. It has some 200 speakers, all adults, and this number is decreasing.

The language has both uvular and bilabial clicks. Few other languages have either.

Dialects

ǂHõã is a Khoisan language spoken in southeastern Botswana, just south of the Khutse game reserve (around Tswaane, Dutlwe, Tsia, Salajwe, Mathibatsela, and Khudumelapye). There are clear phonological differences between the ǂHõã spoken near Khudumelapye and that spoken near Dutlwe. The closely related language Sasi is spoken in Botswana around Lethajwe and Artesia (south of Shoshong). Sasi and ǂHõã are mutually intelligible.

Phonetics

Clicks

Like the Tuu languages, ǂHõã has five click onsets: bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral alveolar. There are thirteen accompaniments, or effluxes, for 65 potential click consonants. Only 55 of these possibilities are attested, though it is unknown whether this is due to actual gaps in the ǂHõã phonemic inventory, or are simply a reflection of linguists' poor knowledge of the ǂHõã language.

Grammar

ǂHõã is an SVO Subject Verb Object language (see examples in Collins 2001, 2002, 2003). The SVO word order of ǂHõã and the other non-central Khoisan languages distinguishes them from Nama (Khoekhoe) and other central Khoisan languages which have SOV word order. ǂHõã has nominal postpositions used for locative relations (see Collins 2001), and the possessor precedes the head noun.

ǂHõã grammar is characterized by a number of features common to the non-central Khoisan languages. First there is an intricate system of nominal and verbal purality (the latter often referred to as pluractionality). Second, there is a system of verbal compounds. Third, there is a general purpose preposition (referred to as the linker in Collins 2003) which appears between post-verbal constituents.

References

• Bell, Arthur and Chris Collins. 2001. "ǂHoan and the Typology of Click Accompaniments in Khoisan", in Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 18, pp 126-153.
• Collins, Chris. 2003. The Internal Structure of vP in Ju|'hoan and ǂHoan. Studia Linguistica 57.1, pp 1-25.
• Collins, Chris. 2002. Multiple Verb Movement in ǂHoan. Linguistic Inquiry 33.1, pp 1-29.
• Collins, Chris. 2001. Aspects of Plurality in ǂHoan. Language 77.3, pp 456-476.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Plural Predicates in ǂHòã. In Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic Studies, A.S.I. Communication 2, ed. Anthony Traill, 1-50. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg: African Studies Institute.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Busman Languages of the Kalahari: ǂHòã - Vocabulary -Stems, ǂHòã - Vocabulary - Recorded Utterances. Technical Project Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Collected Field Notes.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1973. ǂHòã Kinship Terms. Linguistic Inquiry 4, pp 427-449.
• Traill, Anthony. 1979. Phonetic Diversity in the Khoisan Languages. In Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic Studies, ed. J.W. Snyman, 167-189. University of South Africa, Pretoria.
• Traill, Anthony. 1973. N4 or S7: Another Bushman Language. African Studies 32: 25-32.
• Traill, Anthony. 1973. Westphal on "N4 or S7?": A Reply. African Studies 33: 249-255.

External links

• Grammar and phonology of ǂHoan at Cornell
• Older site for sound files of ǂHoan clicks at Cornell
• The Ethnologue Report for ǂHõã