Talk:Khoisan languages
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What does "least well supported" mean, in relation to a language? Is this a significant description, or meaningless verbiage?
I hate Star Wars prequels. I saw Episode 2 in the theater and almost went to sleep. But near the end of the movie when the good guys were about to fight the beasts, I suddently woke up.
There was a click language very similar to the Khoisan languages spoken in Africa. It just switched me on for a few minutes.
I fell to sleep again. I wish I did not snore.
Still refuse to see that lousy love movie on TV or on DVD. I even did not bother to pirate it. But when I was at a friend's home months ago, he was watching it on cable. I suddently found the click voices gone. I was speechless.
Was that my illusion? Did they really use any click languages? -- Toytoy, April 8, 2004
It was more of an insectoid language, so you can imagine it would be all clicks Dysfunktion 04:38, 31 May 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Kalahari question
I'm pretty sure the article is wrong on claiming that Khoisan languages are only spoken in the Kalahari. There are Nama-speakers living in the Central Namib, for instance, and Damaraland (where they speak Damara, a very similar language), and I'm pretty certain there are Khoisan speakers in South Africa's Namaqualand, which is by no means part of the Kalahari.
I've changed the article to reflect this, based on Barnard (1988). Col pogo 19:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Kwadi
A line in this article claims Kwadi is one of the two most widely spoken Khoisan languages. The article on Kwadi, however, says it has been extinct for some 25 years at least ... doesn't seem to agree, does it, since there are some more languages that, however small, are still alive and sometimes kicking. I'm not quite a Khoisan specialist, so it's up to someone else to correct this, but it seems to me quite obvious that another Khoisan language is second in the list of most widely used ones. [above comment posted by 145.97.196.186 Jan 11, 2005 - MD]
- Thanks for pointing this out! I removed the erroneous statement from the article an will look for a reliable source to find out which ones are really most widely spoken. Thanks again! — mark ✎ 14:57, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Additional information. The false statement was added June 16th, 2004 in this diff by User:Robinh (seems a bona fide user to me) and subsequently wikilinked in this diff (Sep 30, 2004). — mark ✎ 15:06, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- Nama (Khoekhoegowab) is the only widespread Khoisan language in southern Africa, with over 100 000 speakers. However, Sandawe also has several 10s of thousands; one estimate has 70 000, though it is not widespread in the geographic sense like Nama. kwami 20:58, 2005 August 31 (UTC)
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- Actually, recent Ethnologue figures are 233k Nama/Damara plus 16k Hai||om, for a cool quarter million. More recent estimates for Sandawe are 40,000. kwami 22:18, 2005 August 31 (UTC)
[edit] Xhosa - question
Hi! Can someone answer my question about incosistency asked on the Discussion page of the article "Xhosa"? Thanks. --Eleassar777 17:05, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Regarding clicks…
Is there any objective reason, beyond tradition, not to classify the common K and T sounds as clicks? -Ahruman 13:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
- Oh yes, of course. [k] and [t] have only one point of articulation, whereas clicks always have two. Furthermore, [k] and [t] are pulmonal, while clicks are not (they're ingressive). And I'm sure there are even more reasons. — N-true 17:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Merged talk page
I'm reorganizing the list per Heine & Nurse, Sands, etc. Ethnologue leaves a lot to be desired here. I'm also removing the Hai//om language altogether, as I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. It's variously described as extinct or spoken by 16,000 people, as being a Ju lect, a separate branch of Khoe family, or one of many dialects of Nama. Until we figure out if there even is a Hai//om language, and how it should be classified, it's best just to leave it off the list. (It's not "unclassified" either: that category is for languages which are unclassified despite reasonably good evidence, such as ‡Hoa, which used to be considered Southern KS merely because it has labial clicks, but which is now being reevaluated. ‡Hoa may actually turn out to be Northern, in which case Northern would have two branches, the Ju dialect cluster, and ‡Hoa.
I've also removed Vasekela and 'Akhoe, due to lack of evidence that these "languages" even exist. --kwami 04:45, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Good work, though I'm not sure if I agree with the deletions. The Ethnologue is a mess regarding Khoisan, that's for sure. You might like Treis (1998) (see the citation over at Khoisan languages). She tells us (467) that Vasekele is a Bantu term for an Angolan !Xŭŭ variety corresponding to Snyman's (1997) Cubango/Cunene !Xŭŭ. Furthermore, Hai||om is a distant member of the Nama/Damara/Namidama dialect continuum (ibid. 470); she notes that the Hai||om formerly spoke a Northern Khoisan language and that a wordlist compilated by Werner shows the proximity to !Xŭŭ (1906:260-268). A good source on Hai||om seems to be Haacke et.al. 1997 'Internal and external relations of Khoekhoe dialects: a preliminary survey', in Haacke & Elderkin (eds.) Namibian Languages: Reports and Papers (Namibian African Studies, 4). Köln: Köppe. — mark ✎ 20:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks. That's the impression I had of Hai||om from reading between the lines, but I wasn't sure. Since it doesn't sound like it's its own language either way, but is frequently found in lists, I'll make a clarifying note at the bottom of the page. As for the other two names, there's nothing special about them except that they happen to be in Ethnologue. Since there are literally scores of alternate names for Khoisan languages, and every reference is likely to have a couple not found on this page, I think they should be left out. Unless we want to try to list every alternate name, which would be a real mess. kwami 23:51, 2005 May 17 (UTC)
[edit] Ungwatsi
Along the lines of editing languages, I was wondering if anyone has a definitive answer on what language the Bushman actor N!xau (G!kau, Gcao, etc.) speaks in "The Gods Must Be Crazy". In the article on the actor, it's identified as the non-existent "Ungwatsi". From naming similarities, I would have assumed that it was a poor anglicization of Kwadi, but if Kwadi is extinct, that can't be. Any thoughts? Rcharman 16:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- Certainly not Kwadi. (That would be something!) The Namibian newspaper article linked from the wiki article says he spoke Ju/'hoansi. That would make sense, with him being Namibian. Also, the name Gcao Coma would presumably correspond to [g|ao k|oma], not "G!kau", which is nonsense in any transcription I've ever seen. kwami 18:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- I concur. Also, Ungwatsi looks like a probable result of garbled transmission of Ju/'hoansi. — mark ✎ 19:32, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] merge?
It's always bothered me that this has been a separate article. Granted, we wouldn't list all IE languages under the main article, but we do list all the branches, with a few representative languages from each. In the case of a small family like KS, that's pretty much the same thing. Any objection to making this a section of the main article? kwami 00:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Good idea! I support it. The Khoisan languages article is quite short, so it won't become too lengthy or anything. — N-true 01:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
- Done. (I suggested this a couple years ago, and there've been no objections.) kwami 21:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
