Khoekhoe

Khoekhoe
Autoglottonym:
Pronunciation:	[]
Ethnologue name:	Nama
OLAC name:	Nama
WALS name:	Khoekhoe
Location point:	18dE 25d30S
Genealogy
Family:	Khoisan
Genus:	Central Khoisan
Speakers
Country:	Namibia, South Africa
Official in:
Speakers:	30,000
Writing system:
Codes
ISO 639-3:	naq
WALS:	kho
MPIExt1:	KHOEKH

Name

The name Khoekhoe is now generally preferred in Khoisan studies.

Alternative names are

• Nama, Nama Hottentot (Hagman 1977)
• Namaqua
• Hottentot
• Khoekhoegowab

Location

Khoekhoe is spoken throughout Namibia, except in the most northern part of the country, and in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

Speakers

There are about 30,000 speakers. They belong to two distinct groups: (i) The Namas in the area to the south of Windhoek, (ii) the Damaras (or Bergdamas) in the area to the north of Windhoek (Hagman 1977:1).

Most Khoekhoe speakers also speak Afrikaans as a second language, and some also speak English, or Herero (Hagman 1977:1).

Dialects

...

Classification

• Khoisan

• Central Khoisan

Validity of classification

...

Works on the language

• Beach, Douglas M. 1938. The phonetics of the Hottentot language. Cambridge: Heffer.

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1976. A Nama grammar: the noun-phrase. MA thesis. University of Cape Town.

• Haacke, Wilfrid H. G. 1977. The so-called "personal pronoun" in Nama. In Traill, Anthony, ed., Khoisan linguistic studies 3, 43-62. Communications 6. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1978. Subject deposition in Nama. MA thesis. University of Essex. Colchester (UK).

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. Compound noun phrases in Nama. In Derek F. Gowlett, ed., African linguistic contributions (Festschrift Ernst Westphal), 189-194. Pretoria: Via Afrika.

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. Dislocated noun phrases in Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara): further evidence for the sentential hypothesis. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere, 29, 149-162.

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1995. Instances of incorporation and compounding in Khoekhoegowab (Nama/Damara). In Anthony Traill, Rainer Vossen and Marguerite Anne Megan Biesele, eds., The complete linguist: papers in memory of Patrick J. Dickens, 339-361. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

• Haacke, Wilfrid, Eliphas Eiseb and Levi Namaseb. 1997. Internal and external relations of Khoekhoe dialects: a preliminary survey. In Wilfrid Haacke & Edward D. Elderkin, eds., Namibian languages: reports and papers, 125-209. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag for the University of Namibia.

• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1999. The tonology of Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara). Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung/Research in Khoisan studies, Bd 16. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

• Haacke, Wilfrid H.G. & Eiseb, Eliphas (2002) A Khoekhoegowab dictionary with an English-Khoekhoegowab index. Windhoek : Gamsberg Macmillan. ISBN 99916-0-401-4

• Hagman, Roy S. 1977. Nama Hottentot grammar. Bloomington: Indiana University.

• Tindall, Henry. 1857. A grammar and vocabulary of the Namaqua-Hottentot language. Cape Town: Pike.

Other languages

• German Khoekhoe (de)