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ǃXóõ
Taa ( ), also known as ǃXóõ ( ; ; also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon), formerly called by the dialect name ǂHoan, thus also known as Western ǂHoan, is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click. Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake) or ʼNǀohan (pl. Nǀumde), depending on the dialect they speak. The Tuu languages are one of the three traditional language families that make up the Khoisan languages. In 2011, there were around 2,500 speakers of Taa. is the word for 'human being'; the local name of the language is , from 'language'. (ǃXóõ) is an ethnonym used at opposite ends of the Taa-speaking area, but not by Taa speakers in between. Most living Taa speakers are ethnic ǃXoon (pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. The name ''Tuu'' comes from a word common to both branches of the family for "person". History The ancestor of Tuu languages, Proto-Tuu, was presumably also spoken in or around the Kalahari desert, as a word for the gemsbok (''*!hai'') is reconstructable to Proto-Tuu. There is evidence of substantial borrowing of words between Tuu languages and other Khoisan languages, including basic vocabulary. Khoekhoe in particular is thought to have a Tuu (ǃKwi-branch) substrate. Examples of borrowings from Khoe into Tuu include 'chest' (ǃXóõ ''gǁúu'' from Khoe ''*gǁuu'') and 'chin' (Nǁng ''gǃann'' from Khoe ''*ǃann''). A root for 'louse' shared by some Khoe and Tuu languages (''ǁxóni''~''kx'uni''~''kx'uri'') has been suggested as de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoisan Languages
The Khoisan languages ( ; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a number of Languages of Africa, African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click languages, click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be Genetic relationship (linguistics), genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language family, language families and two language isolates. All but two Khoisan languages are indigenous to southern Africa; these are classified into three language families. The Khoe languages, Khoe family appears to have migrated to southern Africa not long before the Bantu expansion. Ethnically, their speakers are the Khoekhoe and the San people, San (Bushmen). Two languages of eastern Africa, those of the Sandawe people, Sandawe and Hadza people, Hadza, were originally also cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nǁng Language
Nǁng () or Nǁŋǃke, commonly known by the name of its only spoken dialect Nǀuu (), is a moribund language, moribund Tuu languages, Tuu language once spoken in South Africa. It is no longer spoken on a daily basis, as the speakers live in different villages. The ǀʼAuni language, ǀʼAuni name for the Nǀuu, ǂKhomani, is used by the South African government. As of June 2021, only one speaker of the Nǀuu dialect remains, the rest of the population having shifted to Khoekhoe language, Khoekhoe and Afrikaans. Classification and name Nǁng belongs to the Tuu languages, Tuu (Taa–ǃKwi) language family, with extinct ǂUngkue language, ǂUngkue being its closest relative and Taa language, Taa its closest living relative. The two recent dialects are a western/northwestern one, to which Nǀuu (Nǀhuki) is sometimes restricted, and a nameless eastern dialect from the area of Langeberg. As of 2010, most remaining speakers spoke Nǀuu dialect, and this was the name Nǁng appeared u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity (IPA ), the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse (IPA ), and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting (IPA ). However, these paralinguistic sounds in English are not full click consonants, as they only involve the front of the tongue, without the release of the back of the tongue that is required for clicks to combine with vowels and form syllables. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonation
The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology and speech production in general. Phoneticians in other subfields, such as linguistic phonetics, call this process '' voicing'', and use the term ''phonation'' to refer to any oscillatory state of any part of the larynx that modifies the airstream, of which voicing is just one example. Voiceless and supra-glottal phonations are included under this definition. Voicing The phonatory process, or voicing, occurs when air is expelled from the lungs through the glottis, creating a pressure drop across the larynx. When this drop becomes sufficiently large, the vocal folds start to oscillate. The minimum pressure drop required to achieve phonation is called the phonation thres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jinhui Dialect
The Jinhui dialect ( zh, s=金汇方言, p=Jīnhuì fāngyán), also known as Dônđäc ( zh, c=偒傣, p=Dàngdǎi), is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the town of , China in Shanghai's suburban Fengxian District. It has about 100,000 native speakers. Jinhui is located near the border of the ancient states of Wu and Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. Like other Wu dialects, Dônđäc has preserved many special features of the Old Yue language. Dônđäc has 20 oral vowel qualities, plus many nasal and rhotic ones. According to a Fudan University study that was published in the journal ''Science'', Dônđäc has the largest oral vowel quality inventory in the world (phonemically speaking), and ranks highest in overall phonemic diversity among all languages studied in the research. According to linguist Qian Nairong, who spent eight years teaching in Fengxian and studying its dialects, the reason Dônđäc has so many vowels is because Jinhui is the place where five isog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal
Ernst Oswald Johannes Gotthard Gotthilf Westphal (Khalavha in Venda, South Africa, 1919 - Bredasdorp near Cape Town, South Africa, 27 November 1990) was a South African linguistics, linguist and an expert in Bantu languages, Bantu and Khoisan languages. From 1949 to 1962 he taught at the SOAS, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Biography Ernst Westphal was born at Khalava in Venda, the son of German people, German Lutheran missionary parents. His father was Gotthard Westphal and his grandfather, also Ernst Westphal, was with his wife Wilhelmine the teacher and mentor of Solomon Plaatje. Already as a child E.O.J. Westphal was fluent in German language, German, English language, English, and Afrikaans language, Afrikaans, like many South Africans. His first and native language, however, was Venda language, Venda, and as a child he was initiated into the partly secret Venda people, Venda rites for young men. He studied Zulu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seroa Language
Seroa, or ǃUi, is a ǃKwi language or dialect of South Africa that went extinct in the 19th century. It was spoken in the area of Bloemfontein. ''Seroa'' is the Sesotho Sotho (), also known as ''Sesotho'' (), Southern Sotho, or ''Sesotho sa Borwa'' is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language spoken in Lesotho as its national language and South Africa where it is an official language. Like all Ba ... name, literally "language of the ''Baroa'' (Bushmen)"; the people called themselves ''ǃUi'' (that is, ''ǃKwi''), which just means 'people'. The language is labeled ''SIId'' in Dorothea Bleek's classification. Doculects Güldemann (2019) lists the following doculects.Tom Güldemann. 2019Toward a subclassification of the ǃUi branch of Tuu.Paper presented at Afrikalinguistisches Forschungskolloquium at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 8 January 2019. 10pp. Seroa was closely related to ǁŨǁʼe and Boshof ǃUi, but analysis of the recorded data has not bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorothea Bleek
Dorothea Frances Bleek (later Dorothy F. Bleek; born 26 March 1873, Mowbray, Cape Town – died 27 June 1948, Newlands, Cape Town) was a South African-born German anthropologist and philologist known for her research on the Bushmen (the San people) of Southern Africa. Career Dorothea Bleek was the fifth daughter of Wilhelm Bleek, a pioneering philologist studying the languages and cultures of Southern Africa in the late 1800s. Much of his work was done in partnership with his sister-in-law (Dorothy Bleek's aunt, Lucy Lloyd). The work of Dorothy Bleek was largely a continuation of her father and aunt's research, but she also made numerous notable contributions of her own to the field. Her culminating work, published after death, was the book ''A Bushman Dictionary'', still referenced today. Laurens van der Post, who liked to think of himself as "a white Bushman", credited her book ''Mantis and His Hunter'' (along with '' Specimens of Bushman Folklore'' by her father and aun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Traill (linguist)
Anthony Traill (27 February 1939 – 27 April 2007) was a South African linguist, phonetician, and professor. He was the world's foremost authority on !Xóõ, a Tuu language within the larger Khoisan category. He published widely on the language, including a dictionary. Traill's publications focused on the phonetics of !Xóõ in relation to other Khoisan languages. He also contributed importantly to the Khoisan and Bantu phonetic literature on tone with respect to voice and breathy voice. Traill was Professorial Research Fellow at Wits University for nearly the decade since he was Professor and Chair of Linguistics (until 1998), in the Department of Linguistics, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He spoke highly competent !Xóõ, having conducted research in the !Xóõ communities of Botswana on nearly 100 field trips over more than 35 years. He also spoke Zulu, Tsonga, Tswana and Afrikaans. Traill developed a lump on his larynx The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
