The Kxʼa languages, also called Ju–ǂHoan , is a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
established in 2010 linking the
ǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with the
ǃKung (Juu) dialect cluster, a relationship that had been suspected for a decade. Along with the
Tuu languages
The Tuu languages, or Taa–ǃKwi (Taa–ǃUi, ǃUi–Taa, Kwi) languages, are a language family consisting of two language clusters spoken in Botswana and South Africa. The relationship between the two clusters is not doubted, but is distant ...
and
Khoe languages
The Khoi languages are the largest of the non-Bantu language families indigenous to Southern Africa. They were once considered to be a branch of a Khoisan language family, and were known as Central Khoisan in that scenario. Though Khoisan is n ...
, they are one of three language families indigenous to southern Africa, which are typologically similar due to
areal effects.
Languages
*
ǂʼAmkoe (
moribund)
*
ǃKung (also ''ǃXun'' or ''Ju,'' formerly ''Northern Khoisan''; a dialect cluster)
ǂʼAmkoe had previously been lumped in with the Tuu languages, perhaps over confusion with the dialect name ǂHȍȁn, but the only thing they have in common are
typological features such as their
bilabial click
The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants that sound like a smack of the lips. They are found as phonemes only in the small Tuu language family (currently two languages, one moribund), in the ǂ’Amkoe language of Botswana (also mo ...
s.
Honken & Heine (2010) coined the term ''Kxʼa'' for the family as a replacement for the rather inaccessible compound ''Ju–ǂHoan'' (easily confused with the
Juǀʼhoan language), after the word 'earth, ground', which is shared by the two branches of the family, though also by neighboring languages such as
Kwadi.
Reconstruction
Honken & Heine (2010) reconstruct six places of click articulation for Proto-Kxʼa: the five coronal places that occur in Central
ǃKung, plus the bilabial clicks of ǂʼAmkoe. They postulate that the ancestral bilabial clicks became dental in ǃKung. However,
Starostin (2003) argues that the bilabial clicks are a secondary development in ǂʼAmkoe. He cites the ǂʼAmkoe words for 'one' and 'two', and , where no other Khoisan language has a labial consonant of any kind in its words for these numerals.
Sands (2014) notes that ǂʼAmkoe bilabial clicks correspond to all clicks places in ǃKung except for palatal. She postulates that these reflect
labialized
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
clicks in Proto-Kxʼa: . These became bilabial in ǂʼAmkoe, while the only traces of the labialization in ǃKung are diphthongs. An example, from Proto-Kxʼa *‼ʷ, is 'tail' in ǂHoan , Juǀʼhoan and Ekoka (from Proto-Ju *‼xoe: retroflex clicks merged with alveolars in Southern ǃKung, with laterals in Northern ǃKung, and only remained retroflex in Central ǃKung.) The lack of is not surprising, given the relative rarity of labiovelarized palatals crosslinguistically.
[Bonny Sands (2014]
"Adoption, maintenance and loss of click contrasts."
Paper presented at ''Sound Change in Interacting Human Systems'', 3rd Biennial Workshop on Sound Change, University of California, Berkeley.
References
{{Language families
Language families
Languages of Angola
Languages of Botswana
Languages of Namibia
Endangered languages
Khoisan languages