ǁXegwi, also known as ''Batwa,'' is an
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
ǃKwi language spoken at
Lake Chrissie
Lake Chrissie ( af, Chrissiesmeer) is a lake in Msukaligwa Local Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa. It is a shallow and large lake, with a maximum depth of about , long, wide. The lake is named after Christiana Pretorius, daughter of Mart ...
in
South Africa, near the Eswatini, Swazi border. The last known speaker, Jopi Mabinda, was murdered in 1988. However, a reporter for the South African newspaper Mail & Guardian reports that ǁXegwi may still be spoken in the Chrissiesmeer district.
The ǁXegwi name for their language has been spelled ''giǁkwi꞉gwi'' or ''kiǁkwi꞉gwi.'' Their name for themselves has been transcribed ''tlou tle'' or ''kxlou-kxle'', presumably . The Nguni (Zulu and Swazi) called them ''(a)batwa, amaNkqeshe, amaNgqwigqwi''; the Sotho called them ''Baroa/Barwa''.
Phonology
ǁXegwi lost the abrupt clicks (the various manners of palatal click, and alveolar click, ) found in its relatives. It reacquired from Nguni languages, Nguni Bantu languages, but clicks remained relatively infrequent, compared to other Tuu languages. It also had a series of uvular consonant, uvular plosives not found in other Tuu languages.
[Anthony Traill, 1999. ''Extinct South African Khoisan Languages''.]
References
External links
ǁXegwi basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xegwi language
Extinct languages of Africa
Tuu languages
Languages of South Africa
Languages extinct in the 1980s
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