#khoisan languages

[lillian-darby]

AHHHH, IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL

A language of the Khoisan or Khoe-Sān :3

[culmaer]

WIKITONGUES: Classen speaking Ju|’hoan

[culmaer]

▲▼▲ THE LANGUAGES OF SOUTH AFRICA ▲▼▲

AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO OTHER LANGUAGES

★ Official languages : Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, Sesotho, Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, siSwati, Xitsonga, Tshivenḓa, isiXhosa, isiZulu

☆ Dutch : a former official language (until 1984) ☆ |Xam : language of the National Motto !ke e: /xarra //ke (‘diverse people unite’ or ‘unity in diversity’) ☆ Khoekhoegowab (Nama) : the first of the so-called Khoisan languages to be added to the school curriculum (in the Northern Cape province)(x)

the Khoikhoi and the San/Bushman are the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. their languages form part of three families : Khoe-Kwadi, Tuu and K’xa, and are characterised by the large number of click phonemes. the three families were previously grouped together as the ‘Khoisan’ languages.

during the Bantu Expansion, Bantu-speaking peoples spread across much of the continent, and reached southern Africa around the 3rd or 4th Century. Bantu languages are known for their extensive noun-class systems, and due to contact with the Khoe, Tuu and K’xa languages, languages like isiXhosa, isiZulu and Sesotho have acquired a few click phonemes too.

in 1652, the Dutch East-India Company (VOC) established a permanent settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. many Dutch settlers declared themselves vrÿburghers (free citizens), cutting themselves off from the VOC and the Netherlands. the Dutch spoken by these vrÿburghers (later Boers) and their Malay slaves would eventually evolve into Afrikaans. in 1814, the British acquired the Cape and thence set out to colonise much of the African continent, introducing English as an official language

[culmaer]

Nama (Khoekhoe) to be taught in schools within the next three years !!!

there’s a lot one can talk about concerning the Khoikhoi and San/Bushman languages in southern Africa — but this is positive news and I’m so glad !

starts at 20:17  ‧  Afrikaans | English subtitles Fokus (broadcast). 6 November 2016. Johannesburg : SABC2

[philosopherking1887]

I have one kind of stupid linguistics-nerd nitpick about Black Panther. The place-name “Wakanda,” the location posited for it, and the structure of the personal names are, I think, meant to suggest that it’s a Bantu ethnic group. They had Wakandans speak Xhosa as a stand-in for the native language of Wakanda. The linguistic problem, though, is that Xhosa is one of the Bantu languages that fairly recently -- a few hundred years ago -- borrowed clicks from genetically unrelated Khoisan languages due to intermarriage (this article explains how and when the borrowing happened). I got the sense that Wakanda has been isolated for more than a few hundred years -- longer than there have been clicks in Bantu languages like Xhosa and Zulu. So they probably should have used Swahili, a Bantu language that doesn’t have clicks.

On the other hand, the number of people who are likely to know that that’s historically implausible is so minimal that it really doesn’t matter that much.