Juǀ'hoan dialect

Juǀʼhoan (also rendered Zhuǀʼhõasi, Dzuǀʼoasi, Zû-ǀhoa, JuǀʼHoansi), or Southeastern ǃXuun (Southeastern Ju), is the southern variety of the !Kung dialect continuum spoken by about 30,000 people in the northeast of Namibia and by another 5,000 in the Northwest District of Botswana. Four regional (sub)dialects are distinguished: Epukiro, Tsumkwe, Rundu, and Omatako, with Tsumkwe being the best described; ǂKxʼauǁʼein may be another.

Phonetics

Juǀʼhoan has four tones.

There are five vowel qualities, /i e a o u/. However, these may be nasalized, glottalized, murmured, or combinations of these, and most of these possibilities occur both long and short. The qualities /a/ and /o/ may also be pharyngealized and strident (epiglottalized). Thus, there are a good 30 vowel phonemes, perhaps more, depending on one's analysis. There are, in addition, many vowel sequences and diphthongs.

Juǀʼhoan has an unusually large number of consonants, even for a !Kung language. The following occur at the beginnings of roots. For brevity, only the alveolar clicks are listed with the other consonants; the complete set of clicks is found below.

Tenuis and modally voiced consonants (blue) may occur with any vowel quality. However, other consonants (grey, transcribed with a superscript diacritic to their right) do not occur in the same root as murmured, glottalized, or epiglottalized vowels.

The voiced aspirated and ejective consonants, both pulmonic and clicks, contain a voiceless interval, which Miller (2003) attributes to a larger glottal opening than is found in Hindustani breathy-voiced consonants. Phonetically, however, they are voice contours, starting out voiced but becoming voiceless for the aspiration or ejection.^[2]

The phonemic status of [ʔ], [dz] and [dʒ] is uncertain. [ʔ] may be epenthetic before vowel-initial words; alternatively, it may be that no word may begin with a vowel. /mʱ/ occurs only in a single morpheme, the plural diminutive enclitic /mʱi/. /f/ and /l/ (not shown) only occur in loan words, and some accounts posit a /j/ and /w/. Labials (/p, pʰ, b, bʱ, m/) are very rare initially, though common between vowels. Velar stops (oral and nasal) are rare initially and very rare medially.

The consonants listed as epiglottalized, following Miller-Ockhuizen (2003), have uvular frication and glottalization; they are similar to consonants in Nǀu described as uvular ejective by Miller et al. (2009).

Only a small set of consonants occur between vowels within roots. These are:

Medial [β̞, ɾ, m, n] (green) are very common; [ɣ, ŋ] are rare, and the other medial consonants occur in only a very few roots, many of them loans. [β̞, ɾ, ɣ] are generally analyzed as allophones of /b, d, ɡ/. However, [ɾ] especially may correspond to multiple root-initial consonants.

Juǀʼhoan has 48 click consonants. There are four click "types": dental, lateral, alveolar, and palatal, each of which found in twelve series or "accompaniments" (combinations of manner, phonation, and contour). These are perfectly normal consonants in Juǀʼhoan, and indeed are preferred over non-clicks in word-initial position.

As above, tenuis and modally voiced consonants (blue) may occur with any vowel quality. However, other consonants (grey, transcribed with a superscript diacritic to their right) do not occur in the same root as murmured, glottalized, or epiglottalized vowels.

Glottalized clicks occur almost exclusively before nasal vowels. This may indicate that these clicks are nasalized [ᵑǃˀ], etc., as is the case in most if not all other languages with glottalized clicks. The nasalization would not be audible during the click itself due to the glottalization, which would prevent any nasal airflow, but the velum would be lowered, potentially nasalizing adjacent vowels.

The 'uvularized' clicks are actually linguo-pulmonic contours, [ǃ͡qχ] and [ᶢǃ͡ɢʁ], etc. The 'epiglottalized' clicks are heterorganic affricates, and equivalent to linguo-glottalic consonants transcribed [ǃ͡kxʼ] and [ᶢǃ͡kxʼ], etc., in other languages (Miller 2011).

See Ekoka !Kung for a related variety with a somewhat larger click inventory.

Orthography

In the 1960s the South African Department of Education set about establishing official orthographies for the languages of Southwest Africa (Namibia). Jan Snyman was selected to develop an orthography for the then-unwritten Juǀʼhoasi, which was accepted in 1969. In this orthography, the name of the language is spelled Žuǀʼhõasi. A slightly modified form (Snyman 1975) is shown below.

In the 1980s the Bible Society of South Africa requested a new orthography, one that used only letters of the Latin alphabet, avoided diacritics as much as possible, and conformed as much as possible to the conventions of Afrikaans. This second orthography was accepted in 1987, in which the language is spelled Zjuc'hôa.

A third orthography was developed by the Ju|wa Bushman Development Foundation in 1994. The three are compared with the IPA below. Tone is evidently unmarked:

The 1994 orthography also has ih, eh, ah, oh, uh for breathy (murmured) vowels, and ihn, ahn, ohn, uhn for breathy nasal vowels. However, Snyman maintains that these are positional variants of low-tone vowels, and not needed in an orthography (at least, not if tone were marked).

One of the clicks (*) is not attested.

Bibliography

• Dickens, Patrick J. (2005) A Concise Grammar of Ju|’hoan With a Ju|’hoan-English Glossary and a Subject Index, ISBN 978-3-89645-145-3, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag: Köln.
• Miller-Ockhuizen, Amanda (2003) The phonetics and phonology of gutturals: case study from Ju/'hoansi. Psychology Press.
• Snyman, Jan W. (1975) Zuǀʼhõasi Fonologie en Woordeboek. Cape Town: AA Balkema.
• Snyman, Jan W. (1983) 'Zuǀʼhõasi, a Khoisan Dialect of South West Africa/Namibia', in Dihoff, Ivan R. (ed.) Current Approaches to African Linguistics Vol 1, 115–125.
• Snyman, Jan W. (1997) 'A preliminary classification of the ǃXũũ and Zuǀʼhõasi Dialects', in Haacke, W.H.G. & Elderkin, E.D. (eds.) Namibian Languages: Reports and Papers. (Namibian African Studies, 4). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 21–106.
• Snyman, Jan W. (n.d.) An Official Orthography for Žu|'hõasi Kokx'oi. Pretoria.

Films

• 1980 – The Gods Must Be Crazy
• 2003 – The Journey of Man

References

External links

• Juǀʼhoan basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Languages of Botswana Bantu Birwa Gciriku Herero Ikalanga Kgalagadi Kuhane Mbukushu Nambya Northern Ndebele Tswana (official) Tswapong Yeyi Zezuru Khoisan ǁAni Gǁana Gǀwi ǂHõã Juǀʼhoan Khwe Kua ǂKxʼauǁʼein Nama Naro Shua Taʼa Tsoa Indo-European Afrikaans English (official)