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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.
Khoisan was proposed as one of the four families of African languages in Joseph Greenberg's classification (1949–1954, revised in 1963). 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.
In seventeenth-century Dutch, Hottentot was at times used to denote all black people (synonymously with Kaffir, which was at times likewise used for Cape Coloureds and Khoisans), but at least some speakers used the term Hottentot specifically for what they thought of as a race distinct from the supposedly darker-skinned people referred to as Kaffirs.
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 .
Honken & Heine (2010) coined the term Kxʼa for the family as a replacement for the rather inaccessible compound Ju–ǂHoan (easily confused with the Juǀʼhoan language), after the word [kxʼà] 'earth, ground', which is shared by the two branches of the family, though also by neighboring languages such as Kwadi.
In the 19th century, Thembu were frequently known as the "Tamboekie" or "Tambookie" people. This name was originally the Khoisan language term specifically for the followers of Chief Maphasa who moved into the area west of the Great Kei River in the 1820s. However, Europeans used these terms as a synonym for "Thembu" for much of the 19th century.
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.
Khoisan is a catch-all term for the "non-Bantu" indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. Khoisan may also refer to: Khoisan mythology; Khoisan languages, a group of distinct African languages that use click consonants and do not belong to other African language families; Khoisan X (Benny Alexander; 1955–2010), South African political activist