Khoisan Languages

The languages traditionally referred to as “Khoisan” languages are spoken in southern and eastern Africa, specifically in the Republic of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Angola, and Tanzania. These languages are famous for the extensive use of click phonemes, a characteristic otherwise found only in a very limited number of non-Khoisan languages worldwide (see Clicks and Language Evolution). About twenty Khoisan languages were spoken in the second half of the twentieth century, and only about a dozen of these languages are still spoken today. Since 2000, the state of description and documentation of Khoisan languages have improved considerably. There is a robust amount of information on many of the languages, and several dozens of scholars are currently engaged in research on all aspects of the languages. In addition to the improved state of documentation in description, major progress has been made in the understanding of genealogical relations between individual Khoisan languages. The currently accepted genealogical classification of the Khoisan languages consists of three families: Khoe-Kwadi, Kx’a, and Tuu, as well as two isolated languages, Hadza and Sandawe. The recent progress has also led to a better understanding of the role of language contact and linguistic areas in shaping the present-day Khoisan languages. In addition, it has produced an improved and more coherent terminology of the Khoisan lineages, branches, and varieties whereby a number of new labels were introduced. This makes the matching of languages’ and varieties’ labels used in individual publications to the labels in use today less than straightforward; for this reason, many comments provide the information on the linguistic variety under study in accordance with the terminology accepted today, as well as indicate to which lineage this variety belongs.