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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 .
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.
Namibia, despite its scant population, is home to a wide diversity of languages, from multiple language families: Germanic, Bantu, and the various Khoisan families. When Namibia was administered by South Africa, Afrikaans, German, and English enjoyed an equal status as official languages.
Pronouns and some basic vocabulary have been reconstructed as being common to Khoe and Kwadi. Because Kwadi is poorly attested, it is difficult to tell which common words are cognate and which might be loans, but about 50 lexical correspondences and a common verb construction have been identified.
Khoekhoe (/ ˈ k ɔɪ k ɔɪ / KOY-koy; Khoekhoegowab, Khoekhoe pronunciation: [k͡xʰo̜͡ek͡xʰo̜͡egowab]), also known by the ethnic terms Nama (/ ˈ n ɑː m ə / NAH-mə; Namagowab), [3] Damara (ǂNūkhoegowab), or Nama/Damara [4] [5] and formerly as Hottentot, [b] is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use of click consonants and therefore ...
The Khoi languages were the first Khoisan languages known to European colonists and are famous for their clicks, though these are not as extensive as in other Khoisan language families. There are two primary branches of the family, Khoikhoi of Namibia and South Africa , and Tshu–Khwe of Botswana and Zimbabwe .
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.
English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans , Greek , Italian , Polish , and Portuguese , among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population.