‡Hõã language

From Freepedia

‡Hõã or ‡Hoan, a variant of the ethnonym ‡Qhôã, is an unclassified Khoisan language of Botswana. It was once placed in the Southern Khoisan family because it has bilabial clicks and other phonological similarities, but no further evidence for that classification was ever produced. Its vocabulary and syntax suggest that it may actually be in a Northern Khoisan family alongside the Ju languages.

Note that there is a dialect of the unrelated !Xóõ language that is also called ‡Hua, or sometimes Western ‡Hua. In this case ‡Hõã proper may be called Eastern ‡Hua.

‡Hõã has some 200 speakers, all adults, and this number is decreasing.

The language has both uvular and bilabial clicks. Few other languages have either.

Contents 1 Dialects 2 Phonetics 2.1 Clicks 3 Reference 4 External links

Dialects

• ‡Hõã
• Sasi

Phonetics

Clicks

Like the Southern Khoisan languages, ‡Hoan has five click onsets: bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral alveolar. There are thirteen accompaniments, or effluxes, for 65 potential click consonants. Only 55 of these possibilities are attested, though it is unknown whether this is due to actual gaps in the ‡Hoan phonemic inventory, or are simply a reflection of our poor knowledge of the ‡Hoan language.

Accompaniment (Efflux)	Affricated clicks			'Sharp' clicks
	bilabial clicks	dental clicks	lateral clicks	alveolar clicks	palatal clicks
Voiced velar nasal	ŋʘ	ŋǀ	ŋǁ	ŋǃ	ŋǂ
Voiced velar plosive	gʘ	gǀ	gǁ	gǃ	gǂ
Tenuis velar plosive	kʘ	kǀ	kǁ	kǃ	kǂ
Aspirated velar plosive		kǀʰ	kǁʰ	kǃʰ	kǂʰ
Glottalized velar plosive (prenasalized between vowels)	kʘˀ (ŋˀkʘ)	kǀˀ (ŋˀkǀ)	kǁˀ (ŋˀkǁ)	kǃˀ (ŋˀkǃ)	kǂˀ (ŋˀkǂ)
Preglottalized velar nasal	ʔŋʘ	ʔŋǀ	ʔŋǁ	ʔŋǃ	ʔŋǂ
Delayed aspiration (prenasalized between vowels)			ŋ̊ǁh (ŋǁh)	ŋ̊ǃh (ŋǃh)	ŋ̊ǂh (ŋǂh)
Prenasalized voiced uvular plosive		ɴɢǀ	ɴɢǁ		ɴɢǂ
Tenuis uvular plosive		qǀ	qǁ	qǃ	qǂ
Aspirated uvular plosive		qǀʰ	qǁʰ		qǂʰ
Voiceless uvular affricate	qʘχ	qǀχ	qǁχ	qǃχ	qǂχ
Uvular ejective		qǀ’	qǁ’	qǃ’	qǂ’
Uvular ejective affricate	qʘχ’	qǀχ’	qǁχ’		qǂχ’

Reference

• Chris Collins and Arthur Bell, 2001. "‡Hoan and the Typology of Click Accompaniments in Khoisan", in Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 18, pp 126-153.

External links

• Sound files of ‡Hoan clicks at Cornell
• The Ethnologue Report for ‡Hõã

Khoisan languages  (classification)	Edit
‖Ani | G‖ana | G/wi | Hadza | ‡Hõã | Ju/’hoan | Korana | !Kung (!Xũũ) | Kwadi | ‡Kx’au‖’ein | Kxoe | Nama | Naro | N/u | Sandawe | Seroa | Shua | Tsoa | /Xam | ‖Xegwi | Xiri | !Xóõ