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The compound term Khoisan / Khoesān is a modern anthropological convention in use since the early-to-mid 20th century. Khoisan is a coinage by Leonhard Schulze in the 1920s and popularised by Isaac Schapera. [6] It entered wider usage from the 1960s based on the proposal of a "Khoisan" language family by Joseph Greenberg.
Map of modern distribution of "Khoisan" languages. The territories shaded blue and green, and those to their east, are those of San peoples. The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. [2]
The accepted term for the two people being Khoisan. [2] The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Griqua, Gona, Nama, Khoemana and Damara nations.
The growth of the Khoisan revival has been fueled by contemporary political discussions in South Africa about the potential of pre-1913 land claims and the recognition of Khoisan traditional authority. [3] [4] In order to support their pursuit of land claims, Khoisan revivalists emphasise ancestral kinship and question "coloured" identity. [4]
ǃXu is the Khoikhoi word ǃKhub 'rich man, master', which was used by some Christian missionaries to translate "Lord" in the Bible, and repeated by San people in reporting what the Khoikhoi told them. [5] It is used in Juǀʼhoan as the word for the Christian god. It has been misinterpreted as the "Bushman creator".
Tom Güldemann believes agro-pastoralist people speaking the Khoe–Kwadi proto-language entered modern-day Botswana about 2000 years ago from the northeast (that is, from the direction of the modern Sandawe), where they had likely acquired agriculture from the expanding Bantu, at a time when the Kalahari was more amenable to agriculture.
ǃKung constituted one of the branches of the putative Khoisan language family, and was called Northern Khoisan in that scenario, but the unity of Khoisan has never been demonstrated and is now regarded as spurious. Nonetheless, the anthropological term "Khoisan" has been retained as an umbrella term for click languages in general.
The Khoisan languages (/ ˈ k ɔɪ s ɑː n / KOY-sahn; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families .