?Kung / ? k ? ŋ / ^{[2] [3]} KUUNG ( ?Xun ), also known as Ju ( / ? d? uː / JOO ), is a dialect continuum (language complex) spoken in Namibia , Botswana , and Angola by the ?Kung people , constituting two or three languages. Together with the ??Amkoe language , ?Kung forms the Kx?a language family . ?Kung 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. ^[4]

?Kung is famous for its many clicks , such as the ? in its name, and has some of the most complex inventories of both consonants and vowels in the world. It also has tone and nasalization . For a description, see Ju??hoan . To pronounce ?Xuun (pronounced [??χ?ː??] in Western ?Kung/?Xuun) one makes a click sound before the x sound (which is like a Scottish or German ch ), followed by a long nasal u vowel with a high rising tone. ^[a]

Names [ edit ]

The term ?Kung , or variants thereof, is typically used when considering the dialects to constitute a single language; Ju tends to be used when considering them as a small language family. ?Kung is also sometimes used for the northern/northwestern dialects, as opposed to the well documented Ju??hoan dialects in the south(east); however speakers of nearly all dialects call themselves ?Kung .

The spellings ?Xun and ?Xuun seen in recent literature are related to the Ju??hoan form spelled ?X?u(u)n in the 1975 orthography, or ?Ku(u)n in current orthography. Additional spellings are ?Hu, ?Khung, ?Ku, Kung, Qxu, ?ung, ?Xo, Xu, ?Xu, Xun, ?Xung, ?X??, ?Xun, ?h?: , ^[5] and additional spellings of Ju are Dzu, Juu, Zhu .

Speakers [ edit ]

If the ?Kung dialects are counted together, they would make the third-most-populous click language after Khoekhoe and Sandawe . The most populous ?Kung variety, Ju??hoan, is perhaps tied for third place with Naro .

Estimates vary, but there are probably around 15,000 speakers. Counting is difficult because speakers are scattered on farms, interspersed with speakers of other languages, but Brenzinger (2011) counts 9,000 in Namibia, 2,000 in Botswana, 3,700 in South Africa and 1,000 in Angola (down from perhaps 8,000 in 1975).

Until the mid?late twentieth century, the northern dialects were widespread in southern and central Angola. However, most ?Kung fled the Angolan Civil War to Namibia (primarily to the Caprivi Strip ), where they were recruited into the South African Defence Force special forces against the Angolan Army and SWAPO . At the end of the Border War , more than one thousand fighters and their families were relocated to Schmidtsdrift in South Africa amid uncertainty over their future in Namibia. ^[6] After more than a decade living in precarious conditions, the post-Apartheid government bought and donated land for a permanent settlement at Platfontein, near Schmidtsdrift. ^[7]

Only Ju??hoan is written, and it is not sufficiently intelligible with the Northwestern dialects for the same literature to be used for both.

Varieties [ edit ]

The better-known ?Kung dialects are Tsumkwe Ju??hoan , Ekoka ?Kung , ??O?Kung , and ?Kx?au??ein . Scholars distinguish between eleven and fifteen dialects, but the boundaries are unclear. There is a clear distinction between North/Northwest vs South/Southeast, but also a diverse Central group that is poorly attested.

Heine & Honken (2010) [ edit ]

Heine & Honken (2010) classify the 11 traditionally numbered dialects into three branches of what they consider a single language:

Heine & Konig (2015 , p. 324) state that speakers of all Northwestern dialects "understand one another to quite some extent" but that they do not understand any of the Southeastern dialects.

Sands (2010) [ edit ]

Sands (2010) classifies ?Kung dialects into four clusters, with the first two being quite close:

?Kx?au??ein was too poorly attested to classify at the time.

Snyman (1997) [ edit ]

A preliminary classification of the !X?? and ?u?'hoasi dialects by Snyman (1997): ^[8]

Proto-language [ edit ]

The ancestral language, Proto-Juu or Proto-?Xuun, had five places of click articulation: Dental , alveolar , palatal , alveolar lateral , and retroflex ( *? ). The retroflex clicks have dropped out of Southeastern dialects such as Ju??hoan, but remain in Central ?Kung. In ??Akhwe (Ekoka), the palatal click has become a fricated alveolar . ^{[9] [10]}

See also [ edit ]

• ?Kung word lists (Wiktionary)

Notes [ edit ]

Footnotes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

• Brenzinger, Matthias (2011). Witzlack-Makarevich; Ernszt, M (eds.). "The twelve Modern Khoisan languages". Khoisan Languages and Linguistics: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium, Riezlern / Kleinwalsertal . Research in Khoisan Studies. 29 . Cologne, Germany: Rudiger Koppe Verlag.
• Doke, Clement Martyn (July 1926). "The Phonetics of the Zulu Language". Bantu Studies . 2 . Johannesburg, South Africa: University of the Witwatersrand Press. ISSN   0256-1751 .
• Haacke, W.H.G. (2009). "Khoesaan Languages". In Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World . Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp. 600?602. ISBN   9780080877747 . LCCN   2008934269 .
• Heine, Bernd; Honken, Henry (2010). "The Kx?a Family: A New Khoisan Genealogy" (PDF) . Journal of Asian and African Studies (79). Tokyo, Japan: 5?36. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 2, 2018.
• Heine, Bernd; Konig, Christa (2015). The ?Xun Language: A Dialect Grammar of Northern Khoisan . Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung, 33. Rudiger Koppe. ISBN   9783896458773 .
• Miller, A.L.; Holliday, J.; Howcroft, D.M.; Phillips, S.; Smith, B.; Tsz-Hum, T.; Scott, A. (2011). "The Phonetics of the Modern-Day Reflexes of the Proto-Palatal Click in Juu Languages". Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Khoisan Languages and Linguistics .
• Robins, Steven; Madzudzo, Elias; Brenzinger, Matthias (April 2001). Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa ? An Assessment of the Status of the San in South Africa, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe (PDF) . Vol. 2. Windhoek, Namibia: Legal Assistance Centre (LAC). ISBN   99916-765-4-6 . Archived from the original (PDF) on July 2, 2017 . Retrieved August 31, 2017 .
• Sands, Bonny (2010). Brenzinger, Matthias; Konig, Christa (eds.). "Juu Subgroups Based on Phonological Patterns". Khoisian Language and Linguistics: The Riezlern Symposium 2003 . Cologne, Germany: Rudiger Koppe: 85?114.
• Scott, Abigail; Miller, Amanda; Namaseb, Levi; Sands, Bonny; Shah, Sheena (June 2, 2010). "Retroflex Clicks in Two Dialects of ?Xung". University of Botswana, Department of African Languages .
• Suzman, James (April 2001). Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa ? An Assessment of the Status of the San in Namibia (PDF) . Vol. 4. Windhoek, Namibia: Legal Assistance Centre (LAC). ISBN   99916-765-1-1 . Archived (PDF) from the original on April 27, 2018 . Retrieved August 31, 2017 .