Khoisan languages
This article is about the Khoisan language group. For the Khoisan ethnic group, see Khoisan.
The Khoisan languages are the smallest phylum of African languages. Historically, they were mainly spoken by the Khoi and Bushmen people. Today they are only spoken in the Kalahari Desert in south-western Africa, and a small area in Tanzania. The languages are becoming increasingly rare; several are known to have become extinct. Many of them have no written record. The Hadza and Sandawe languages in Kenya are generally classified as Khoisan, but are extremely distant (linguistically and geographically) from the others. Many linguists regard the Khoisan phylum as an as yet unproved hypothesis.
They are notable for the use of click consonants as phonemes,
including the Kung-ekoka language, which has in excess of 50 click
consonants and over 140 separate phonemes, and the !Xóõ language with its giant phoneme inventory and strident and pharyngealized sounds.
Many people were exposed to this group of languages through the
Bushman language used in the 1984 film The Gods Must Be Crazy.
The most widely spoken languages in the group are Kwadi and Sandawe.
The only other languages using clicks as phonemes are Nguni Bantu languages, such as Xhosa and Zulu in South Africa, Sesotho (also spoken in South Africa and Lesotho), the South Cushitic Dahalo language, and an artificial ceremonial language called 'Damin', spoken by some Australian Aborigines. All of these languages except Damin are believed to have adopted the use of clicks from neighboring Khoisan populations.
Grammatically, the Khoisan languages are generally fairly isolating. Suffixes are often used, but word order is overall more widely used than inflection.
See also
