ǃGãǃne (ǃGãǃnge) 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 ...

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

of the ǃKwi family which was once spoken near

Tsolo Tsolo is a town in Mhlontlo Local Municipality in O.R.Tambo District of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The town is some 42 km north-west of Mthatha and 22 km south-west of Qumbu. The name, derived from Xhosa, is said to me ...

and in

Umtata Mthatha , formerly Umtata, is the main city of the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality in Eastern Cape province of South Africa and the capital of OR Tambo District Municipality. The city has an airport, previously known as the K. D. Matanzi ...

District in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, south of

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Sou ...

. The only material on the language is 140 words collected from two semi-speakers in 1931.Anthony Traill, "The Khoisan Languages of South Africa", in Rajend Mesthrie, ed., 1995, ''Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics'' Like ǁXegwi, ǃGãǃne is considered an "outlier" among the ǃKwi languages by Güldemann (2005, 2011). ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'' and ''Glottolog'' count it as a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

of Seroa, though the two have no demonstrable connection apart from being in the ǃKwi family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:gane Language Extinct languages of Africa Tuu languages Languages of South Africa Languages extinct in the 20th century stub