ǂHoan language

ǂHoan (also spelled ǂHõã, ǂHûân, or in native orthography ǂHȍȁn, and sometimes specified as Eastern ǂHoan^[2]) is a Khoisan language of Botswana. It was shown to be related to the Juu languages by Heine and Honken (2010).^[3] It is a severely endangered and moribund. The current number of speakers is less than 60 people, most of them around the age of 60. The language is no longer passed on to the children and grandchildren. The mother tongue of the majority of children is Kgalagadi, a Bantu language which is the local lingua franca of the area.

Note that there is a dialect of the !Xoon that goes by the same name and is differentiated as Western ǂHuan.

Language area

ǂHoan is spoken in southeastern Botswana, just south of the Khutse game reserve at the southern fringe of the Kalahari desert, around the villages of Tswaane, Dutlwe, Mathibatsela, Motokwe, Khekenye, and Salajwe. There are some semi-speakers in Khudumelapye. No speakers remain in the former location of Tsia.

Dialects

There are some phonological differences between the ǂHoan spoken around Dutlwe and that spoken around Motokwe and Khekhenye; Salajwe has yet to be investigated. Collins (1998) reports "a closely related, mutually intelligible language", Sasí, around Lethajwe and Artesia, south of Shoshong. Sasí remains undescribed, so it is not clear how divergent it may be.

Phonetics

ǂHõã has four level tones and one rising tone. The language has both uvular and bilabial clicks. Few other languages have either.

Clicks

Like the Tuu languages, with which it was previously classified, ǂHõã has five click onsets: bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral alveolar. There are thirteen accompaniments, or effluxes, for 65 potential click consonants. Only 55 of these possibilities are attested, though it is unknown whether this is due to actual gaps in the ǂHõã phonemic inventory, or are simply a reflection of linguists' poor knowledge of the ǂHõã language.

Grammar

ǂHõã is an SVO subject–verb–object language (see examples in Collins 2001, 2002, 2003). The SVO word order of ǂHõã and the other non-central Khoisan languages distinguishes them from Nama (Khoekhoe) and other central Khoisan languages which have SOV word order. ǂHõã has nominal postpositions used for locative relations (see Collins 2001), and the possessor precedes the head noun.

ǂHõã grammar is characterized by a number of features common to the non-central Khoisan languages. First there is an intricate system of nominal and verbal purality (the latter often referred to as pluractionality). Second, there is a system of verbal compounds. Third, there is a general purpose preposition (referred to as the linker in Collins 2003) which appears between post-verbal constituents.

References

• Bell, Arthur and Chris Collins. 2001. "ǂHoan and the Typology of Click Accompaniments in Khoisan", in Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 18, pp 126–153.
• Collins, Chris. 2003. The Internal Structure of vP in Ju|'hoan and ǂHoan. Studia Linguistica 57.1, pp 1–25.
• Collins, Chris. 2002. Multiple Verb Movement in ǂHoan. Linguistic Inquiry 33.1, pp 1–29.
• Collins, Chris. 2001. Aspects of Plurality in ǂHoan. Language 77.3, pp 456–476.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Plural Predicates in ǂHòã. In Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic Studies, A.S.I. Communication 2, ed. Anthony Traill, 1-50. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg: African Studies Institute.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Busman Languages of the Kalahari: ǂHòã - Vocabulary -Stems, ǂHòã - Vocabulary - Recorded Utterances. Technical Project Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1975. Collected Field Notes.
• Gruber, Jeffrey S. 1973. ǂHòã Kinship Terms. Linguistic Inquiry 4, pp 427–449.
• Traill, Anthony. 1979. Phonetic Diversity in the Khoisan Languages. In Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic Studies, ed. J.W. Snyman, 167-189. University of South Africa, Pretoria.
• Traill, Anthony. 1973. N4 or S7: Another Bushman Language. African Studies 32: 25-32.
• Traill, Anthony. 1973. Westphal on "N4 or S7?": A Reply. African Studies 33: 249-255.

External links

• Language Documentation Project of ǂHoan at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig
• Language Documentation Project of ǂHoan within the 'Kalahari Basin Area Project' of the European Science Foundation
• Grammar and phonology of ǂHoan at Cornell University
• The Ethnologue Report for ǂHõã