is xhosa a khoisan language

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http://www.gononda.com/xhosa/, Xhosa phrases Lingala, / The Khoisan, or Click, linguistic family is made up of three branches: the Khoisan languages of the San (Bushmen) and Khoikhoi, spoken in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa; Sandawe, a language found in E Africa; and Hatsa (Hadzane or Hadzapi), also spoken in E Africa. [4][5] It has been suggested that the similarities of the Tuu and Kxa families are due to a southern African Sprachbund rather than a genealogical relationship, whereas the Khoe (or perhaps KwadiKhoe) family is a more recent migrant to the area, and may be related to Sandawe in East Africa.[3]. In, Gldemann, Tom and Rainer Vossen. 1: . The prenasalized versions have a very short voicing at the onset which then releases in an ejective, like the prenasalized affricates, while the phonemically nasal clicks have a very long voicing through the consonant. Xhosa beliefs dictate that people turn to a diviner or healer, usually attired in a headdress and shawl of fur, when needing advice on how to deal with the spirits, help with illnesses, or to ward off evil from unnatural forces such as thetokoloshe a potentially malevolent goblin who attacks at night. The South African Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts in Xhosa on both radio (on Umhlobo Wenene FM) and television, and films, plays and music are also produced in the language. See also Khoisan languages, which contains several audio clips. The Xhosa language employs 26 letters from the Latin alphabet. Day 1 and 2 highlights of the Africa Green Economic Summit uku-sebenz-is-el + wa -> ukusetyenziselwa "be used for"), but does not affect morpheme-initial consonants (i.e. Clicks are spreading to a few additional neighboring languages. The click consonant sounds are a typical and unique feature of the San and Khoikhoi languages. Soga, Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people. The Khoisan people have a unique language that is characterized by clicking sounds made with the tongue and mouth. Xhosa is one of four sister languages called Nguni Languages (Ndebele, Swati, Xhosa and Zulu) which are all mutually intelligible. Ejective consonants are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis, raising air pressure in the mouth, so when the sound is released, there is a noticeable burst of air accompanying the release. Zulu: 22.7%, Xhosa: 16%, Afrikaans . They are known as the Saa by the Nama, and this is the source of the word San. This click is like the sound people make to call horses. The Khoisan languages differ in the number of such modifications from a low of 20 in Nama to a high of 83 in Kxoe. A system for writing Xhosa using the Latin alphabet was devised by Can you reproduce these click types? As an example, the composition of the verb In the sentence Un-ntwana u-ya-wa-sel-a ama-nzi One child drinks water is shown below. With about 800 speakers in Tanzania, Hadza is no longer seen as a Khoisan language and appears to be unrelated to any other language. The palatalization process only applies once, as evidenced by ukuphuphumisa+wa -> ukuphuphunyiswa "to be made to overflow", instead of the illicit alternative, *ukuphutshunyiswa. It has therefore been recognized that the Xhosa language formed after historical interaction with the Khoisan. Bemba, Xhosa is used in primary schools up to the second grade and is studied as a subject in both primary and secondary schools up to the tenth grade. The Kxa family is a relatively distant relationship formally demonstrated in 2010.[11]. Adjectives, possessive pronouns and demonstratives come after the noun they modify. Kiga, Khoisan languages are best known for their use of click consonants as phonemes. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Khoisan people appeared in southern Africa 60,000 years ago. According to this hypothesis, clicks might have originally served as onomatopoetic imitations of naturally occurring sounds. African Click Languages: The Khoisan's Secret Tales - Africa Freak Xhosa | South African History Online A certain headdress will be a worn by a newly married girl, while a woman who has just given birth to her first child will wear a different, Xhosa beliefs recognise the presence of ancestral spirits and a supreme authority. Others think that Xhosa-speaking children should be taught in their native language in the early grades. Learning materials, Information about the Xhosa language When plain voiceless clicks (c, x, q) are prenasalized, they become slack voiced nasal (ngc, ngx, ngq). The Origins of the Xhosa Language The Xhosa Language has its roots in South Africa from an ethnic group known as the amaXhosa. Aspiration is lost on obstruents; ejection is added on voiceless consonant. Do you think English would be more interesting with similar click sounds? Their language is often called the click language because of its three dominant clicks, which entered the isiXhosa language when the Nguni arrivals mixed with the Khoisan. Lozi, (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Some corrections to this page by Michael Peter Fstumum, Information about Xhosa | C'est la deuxime langue la plus parle du pays. Subscribe using the form below to have all of my posts delivered directly to your email. Starostin (2013) accepts a relationship between Sandawe and Khoi is plausible, as is one between Tuu and Kxa, but sees no indication of a relationship between Sandawe and Khoi on the one hand and Tuu and Kxa on the other, or between any of them and Hadza. If a woman has children, whom she has raised to be adults, then it is usual to find her seated among her peers smoking a long-handled pipe. (Reprints, with minor corrections, a series of eight articles published in the ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' from 1949 to 1954. There are several places of articulation at which click consonants occur, as shown in the table below. Xhosa - Wikipedia Besides clicks, Khoisan languages have non-click consonants, giving rise to very complex consonantal systems which are amongst the largest in the world. "History of Click-Speaking Populations of Africa Inferred from mtDNA and Y Chromosome Genetic Variation", "The Kxa Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy", . Khoisan / k s n /, or Khoe-Sn (pronounced [kxoesan]), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the Sn or Skhoen (Saake in the Nng language).. The numerous click consonants have been borrowed from Khoi or San words. Family words | The Khoisan languages were once spoken across all of southern Africa from southern Angola in the west to Swaziland in the east and the Cape of Good Hope in the south (see the map). The basic clicks are four: dental (|), alveolar (! [12], Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most widely spoken African language is Zulu. Central Khoisan, the largest group, includes Nama (Khoekhoe, Khoekhoegowab) and Haiom (Saan) spoken in Namibia, and smaller languages spoken in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. , "A Lexicostatistical Approach towards Reconstructing Proto-Khoisan", "From modern Khoisan languages to Proto-Khoisan: The Value of Intermediate Reconstructions. The Xhosa themselves are somewhat ambivalent about the use of their language in education. The 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, however, have witnessed the death of many of the recorded languages and dialects, and their distribution is now largely confined to Botswana and Namibia. The orthographic b in mb is the voiced plosive [mb]. Tradues em contexto de "Khoisan" en portugus-ingls da Reverso Context : Palavras-chave: Khoisan; reconciliation; identity; narrative; communication. Bushman languages | Britannica 2 is- and iz- replace isi- and izi- respectively before stems beginning with a vowel, e.g. The Zulu refer to the Eastern Cape as KwaXhosa which is translated to place of the Xhosa. The official name of the language is isiXhosa, with the key word Xhosa being derived from the Khoisan Language. Grammatically, the southern Khoisan languages are generally analytic, having several inflectional morphemes, but not as many as the click languages of Tanzania. The branches that were once considered part of so-called Khoisan are now considered independent families, since it has not been demonstrated that they are related according to the standard comparative method. The following table lists the consonant phonemes of the language, with the pronunciation in IPA on the left and the orthography on the right: In addition to the ejective affricate [t], the spelling tsh may also be used for either of the aspirated affricates [ts] and [t]. The language is also studied as a subject. In, This page was last edited on 10 January 2023, at 12:02. Clicks are ingressive consonantal stops produced by an intake of air followed by a sudden withdrawal of the tongue from the soft palate, front teeth, or back teeth and hard palate. 9 reasons youre not fluentYET & how to fix it! The number of Khoisan speakers has declined drastically in the last three centuries due to European colonisation, demographic pressures and changing lifestyles. Nguni languages are, in turn, classified under the much larger abstraction of Bantu languages. The normal word order in Xhosa is Verb-Object (the subject is part of the verb compound). Northern Ndebele (Zimbabwe), tsk! The Khoisan people, who at various points have been referred to using the derogatory terms 'Bushmen' and 'Hottentots', as well as Kung, Kxoe, Khoi Khoi, Ovahimba, San, Vatua and !Xu, are an ethno-linguistic group that has traditionally been marginalised throughout South African history. ), palatal (), and lateral (). These are typically written with characters such as and . Clicks are quite versatile as consonants, as they involve two articulations of the tongue which can operate partially independently. 2. Ethnologue lists 27 Khoisan languages which are spoken by half a million people or less. Other Bantu Languages include the Xhosa and Zulu languages, two languages famous for their large number of click consonants developed through their extended interaction with the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa. 0 characters. There are five vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that distinguish word meaning. For Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler "wanted to make it a priority to use Xhosa as much as possible" in the script, and provided dialect coaches for the film's actors. Xhosa is a member of the Southeastern, or Nguni, subgroup of the Bantu group of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Christian missionaries during the early 19th century. Here are a few of these words. The verb is modified by affixes to mark subject, object, tense, aspect and mood. Adjectives, possessive pronouns and demonstratives agree with the noun they modify in class and number. Sources nangokweemfanelo. Similarly, the tenuis (plain) clicks are often glottalised, with a long voice onset time, but that is uncommon. The Khoisan People of Southern Africa: Origin, Culture, Tradition and Most others are neighboring Bantu languages in southern Africa: the Nguni languages (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, Phuthi, and Northern Ndebele); Sotho; Yeyi in Botswana; and Mbukushu, Kwangali, and Gciriku in the Caprivi Strip. People who speak Xhosa as their second language number about 11 million. The debate about these relationships remains a prominent feature in the linguistic study of Khoisan languages, and the disagreements that sustain it have never been satisfactorily resolved. uku-bhal+wa -> ukubhalwa "to be written", instead of illicit *ukujalwa). As with other South African languages, Xhosa is characterized by respectful forms of address for elders and in-laws. Agreements usually reflect part of the original class with which the word agrees. Several radio stations and one TV station broadcast in Xhosa. Mbunda, Xhosa (isiXhosa) is the southernmost member of the Bantoid group of the Niger-Congo language family in Africa. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. This term, now considered derogatory, means stutterer in Dutch. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. In Voeltz, Erhard Friedrich Karl (ed.). Indeed, the use of the term 'Khoikhoi' meaning . [1] [2] Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. The ceremonial slaughtering of animals is one of the many ways by which ancestors are invoked. Other figures are the huge lightning bird (. Khoisan Last but not least is the Khoisan family with between 40 - 70 members. Umbundu, Believed to be the oldest of the four language families, it is the smallest of the four and is found mainly in Southern Africa. Interestingly, the word Xhosa is from the Khoisan language and means "The angry men". The Languages of Africa | Infoplease The language of instruction at universities in South Africa is English or Afrikaans (to a diminishing extent[21]), and Xhosa is taught as a subject, both for native and for non-native speakers. At the secondary level, instruction in schools serving Xhosa-speaking students is in English. Of all the Khoisan languages, only Nama enjoys official recognition. http://learn101.org/xhosa.php . How difficult is it to learn Xhosa? #CapeTownEPrix http://xhosaculture.co.za/about-us/learn-xhosa/ What I love most about uTalk is that you can jump around their extensive library of topics and choose what you want to learn, when you want, and at your own pace. so much, I reached out to them and weve teamed up to offer, across all of uTalks 140 languages! The Xhosa language (Isixhosa), of which there are variations, is part of the Nguni language group. Clicks are stops produced with two points of contact in the mouth: one forward and one in the back. Although little Kwadi data is available, proto-KhoeKwadi reconstructions have been made for pronouns and some basic vocabulary. The spirits of those who have passed on are honoured in rituals and ceremonies. Languages Gulper/Khoisan Peoples/About World Languages/Wikipedia/The Week. Consequently, the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. Xhosa: [noun] a member of a Bantu-speaking people of Eastern Cape province. Nyole, The word lives on, however, in the names of several African animal and plant species, such as the Hottentot Fig or Carpobrotus. Here's 10 things you didn't know about this incredib, We're proud of you @KelvinvdLinde There are books, magazines and newspapers in Xhosa, as well as TV and radio programmes, films, plays and songs. They It is also taught in universities. Punu, [8] Despite their shared clicks, the Khoisan languages diverge significantly from each other. The sustainability village focused on boo https://t.co/BDeRnlGHot, Experience the most exciting electric street racing here in Cape Town as the world's best street racers battle. https://t.co/ZihxkpWwe7, Undoubtedly the best spots to experience unbridled views of the Mother City. These famous click sounds are found in Khoisan languages (alternative names include Khoesaan or Khoesan). ''Studies in African Linguistic Classification.'' http://ilanguages.org/xhosa.php Xhosa, The pocket of air produced by the resulting enclosure is rarefied by the sucking action of the tongue. Ronga, The best-known performer of Xhosa songs outside South Africa was Miriam Makeba, whose Click Song #1 (Xhosa Qongqothwane) and "Click Song #2" (Baxabene Ooxam) are known for their large number of click sounds. languages as a result of long and extensive interaction between the This produces something like the English tut-tut. The 'X' in Xhosa, for example, represents a type of . for $0.07/word. films, plays and songs. Corrections? Click here to claim your exclusive 30% discount. Forms of "Nga" ##. [13] There is a small but significant Xhosa community of about 200,000 in Zimbabwe. The other Khoisan languages are unrecognized and marginalized, especially in South Africa. Languages such as Zulu and Xhosa make use of three of the five kinds of clicks. Nguni languages of southern Africa, which include Zulu and Xhosa, are believed to have borrowed their clicks from Khoisan languages. The name Khoisan derives from the name of the Khoikhoi (people people or real people) group of South Africa and the San (Bushmen) group of Namibia. The murmured clicks, plosives and affricates are only partially voiced, with the following vowel murmured for some speakers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language Tsonga, Author of. Khoisan languages, a unique group of African languages spoken mainly in southern Africa, with two outlying languages found in eastern Africa. All Rights Reserved. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. However, linguists who study Khoisan languages reject their unity, and the name "Khoisan" is used by them as a term of convenience without any implication of linguistic validity, much as "Papuan" and "Australian" are. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Xhosa-language. Nguni - a group of southern Bantu languages . https://www.twinkl.co.za/resources/south-africa-resources/isixhosa-foundation-phase-english-south-africa-suid-afrika/2, Online Xhosa dictionaries Kinyarwanda, One puzzling feature of the Khoisan languages is that, despite some uniformity in their use of clicks, they differ considerably among themselves in aspects such as word formation, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Nkore, Luchazi, So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site. Implosive consonants Watch this video of Miriam Makebas singQongqothwane in Xhosa, also known as The Click Song. The Tuu family consists of two language clusters, which are related to each other at about the distance of Khoekhoe and Tshukhwe within Khoe. Gogo, Like other Southern Bantu languages, Xhosa has borrowed words from the Khoisan languages, as well as from English and Afrikaans. Download your free PDF guide with 125 Italian travel phrases. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. in a spirit of brotherhood. As of 2003[update] approximately 5.3million Xhosa-speakers, the majority, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225). A certain amount of intermarriage with the Khoisan people they found here also gave rise to clans like the Gqunkhwebe. Bulu, second language speakers. Nande, The sound system of Xhosa contains three types of click sounds borrowed from the neighbouring Khoisan languages. Because I believe in uTalk so much, I reached out to them and weve teamed up to offer you an exclusive 30% OFF reader discount across all of uTalks 140 languages! Xhosa is, to a large extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. #VisitSouthAfrica https://t.co/ncCaKrq4Fa, The Summit includes a Sustainability Village that aims to boost the local economy and power positive economic activ https://t.co/OEOnUXyWdU, Clareb accessories is your one stop shop for all things, unique earrings, necklaces, bracelets. Xhosa, Zulu, Ndelebele and Swati share most of their basic vocabulary as well as grammar. Phrases | They are truly voiced only after nasals, but the oral occlusion is then very short in stops, and it usually does not occur at all in clicks. Xhosa and Khoisan peoples. The origin of Khoisan click consonants and their peculiarly African provenance therefore remains a mystery. 4. English. In Nguni. Are Xhosa and Zulu Bantu, Khoisan or mixed? - Quora Thus, a more correct spelling is Khoesaan. "Toward reconstructing Proto-South Khoisan." Omissions? The first Bible translation was in 1859, produced in part by Henry Hare Dugmore. For example. The Khoe family is both the most numerous and diverse family of Khoisan languages, with seven living languages and over a quarter million speakers. Aspirated clicks become prenasalized ejected clicks. The only widespread Khoisan language is Khoekhoe (also known as Khoekhoegowab, Nm or Damara) of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, with a quarter of a million speakers; Sandawe in Tanzania is second in number with some 4080,000, some monolingual; and the Kung language of the northern Kalahari spoken by some 16,000 or so people. Corrections? If you want detailed destinations guides, languages learning tips, and travel phrase guides, then you've come to the right place! This creates a sound somewhat resembling a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The verb root occupies the 0 position. Traill demonstrated this linguistic diversity in the data presented in the below table. Digo, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is part of the national anthem of South Africa, national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia, and the former anthem of Zimbabwe and Namibia. African languages: | Infoplease Nyakyusa, You can unsubscribe at any time. Swati, #CapeTownEPrix Each click can combine with a number of accompanying articulations such as voicing, nasality, aspiration, and ejection producing a potentially large number of consonantal sounds: Nama has 20, Gwi 52, Juhoan 55 and Xo 83. The chart below (taken from Some elements of the structure of the Xhosa verb) shows some of the possible slots for prefixes and suffixes. The Xhosas started facing serious trouble during the 18th and 19th Centuries when they engaged in frequent conflicts with the European settlers attempting to annex their native lands. The term Bushman as it is used to describe certain southern African hunter-gatherers is somewhat controversial because it is perceived as racist. Jita, For instance, they can be aspirated, nasalised and glottalised. The first two columns include words from the two Khoisan language isolates, Sandawe and Hadza. Their language is often called the 'click ' language because of its three dominant clicks, which entered the isi Xhosa language when the Nguni arrivals mixed with the Khoisan. They are descended from the Nguni, who began migrating south from central and northern Africa more than a thousand years ago. What animals did the Khoisan hunt? - TimesMojo In keeping with many other Bantu languages, Xhosa is an agglutinative language, with an array of prefixes and suffixes that are attached to root words. Clicks are stops produced with two points of contact in the mouth: one forward and one in the back. Tshiluba, "Die Khoe-sprachigen Buschmnner der Kalahari." [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. . A century ago the Haiom people spoke a Ju dialect, probably close to Kung, but they now speak a divergent dialect of Nama. Some scholars speculate that they might represent an earlier stage in the evolution of human language. 2014 - 2023. is that you can jump around their extensive library of topics and choose what you want to learn, when you want, and at your own pace. OshiWambo, Enchantment winds through the Xhosa language, dress and rituals. "Phonetic Correspondences among Khoisan Affricates." [12] It is the second most common Bantu home language in South Africa as a whole. I'm the 'guide' behind The Intrepid Guide, an Award-Winning site for travellers and language learners with thousands of readers, 1,000+ students, and a popular newsletter. She hypothesizes that this took place within efforts to prevent the spread of English during European colonization and prevent the entrance of the majority into the middle class.[7]. ), Gldemann, Tom and Edward D. Elderkin (forthcoming) '. / if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'omniglot_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_1',141,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-omniglot_com-medrectangle-4-0'); Download an alphabet chart for Xhosa (Excel). Sena, Bonny Sands (1998) concluded that the family is not demonstrable with current evidence. The Juhoan language has 48 click consonants among nearly as many non-click consonants, strident and pharyngealized vowels, and four tones. Shona, I promise not to spam you. This distinctive linguistic characteristic was adopted by a number of neighbouring Bantu languages, such as Xhosa and Zulu in South Africa. The word "Xhosa" is derived from the Khoisan language and means "angry men". But without a shift in language policy and government . Learning Xhosa is a challenging, but rewarding experience. These are divided into North, Central and South Khoisan groups belonging to southern Africa, plus two Tanzanian isolates, Sandawe and Hadza (Hatsa), which possess a few words, affixes, and particles that justify the assumption of a distant relationship with Khoisan. "Khoisan." But those simple 5 clicks can add a lot to a sentence. Xhosa people - Wikipedia The origin of clicks remains a mystery. The name Khoisan derives from the name of the Khoe-Khoe (also known as the Hottentot) group of South Africa and the San (Bushmen) group of Namibia. (Let's learn together!). Xhosa beliefs dictate that people turn to a diviner or healer, usually attired in a headdress and shawl of fur, when needing advice on how to deal with the spirits, help with illnesses, or, ward off evil from unnatural forces such as the, a potentially malevolent goblin who attacks at night. The inventory is taken from Wikipedia. Tentative distribution of the Khoisan languages, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoisan-languages, Fu Jen Catholic University - Graduate School of Linguistics - The Khoisan Language Family. Baucom, Kenneth L. 1974. The Khoisan languages (/ksn/; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Verbs use the following prefixes for the subject and object: The following is a list of phrases that can be used when one visits a region whose primary language is Xhosa: Xhosa-speaking people have inhabited coastal regions of southeastern Africa since before the 16th century. Xhosa language - Wikipedia Privacy Policy Kimbundu, Hadza (Hatsa), one of the East African Khoisan languages, is a remarkable exception to this, having retained its vitality through a pattern of stable bilingualism with Swahili, the dominant Bantu language in the area. However, tones are usually not indicated in writing. In Haacke, Wilfrid and Elderkin, Edward Derek (eds. It has 18 click consonants (in comparison, Ju'hoan, spoken in Botswana and Namibia, has 48, and Taa, with roughly 4,000 speakers in Botswana, has 83). "Comparison and Classification of Khoisan languages." Let us know where you'll be watching this weekend. The Khoisan | South African History Online . The rest of the elements are placed to the left or to the right of the verb root. By distribution over land, Xhosa is the most widely spoken African language (while Zulu is most widely spoken in terms of population). The Khoisan I Meeting the Khoisan I Khoisan Click Language Tones are rarely marked in the written language, but they can be indicated a [], [], [], []. Updates? It is one of the eleven official languages of the Republic of South Africa. in parts of Lesotho and Zimbabwe. 1998. The Xhosa noun consists of two essential parts, the prefix and the stem. Even though the sound structure of the Khoisan languages is unique, their resemblance to each other in this respect has not provided the evidence needed to unravel all their internal genetic affiliations, let alone their relationships to other African languages. Xhosa - Traduzione in ucraino - esempi inglese | Reverso Context It is a Methodist hymn written in Xhosa by Enoch Sontonga in 1897. Xhosa is spoken as a first language by 8.2 million people and by 11 million as a second language in South Africa, mostly in Eastern Cape Province and Transkei. XXhosa tradition is an extremely powerful social force binding together these people of Eastern Cape province, most evident in Xhosa beliefs revering their ancestors. The original and unique use of clicks in the Khoisan languages has invited speculation that these unusual sounds might reflect an earlier stage in the evolution of language when sounds were natural vocal adaptations to the environment. The Khoesan Languages (Chapter 2) - Language in South Africa