Tuu languages


The Tuu languages, or Taa–ǃKwi 'languages', are a language family consisting of two language clusters spoken in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia. The relationship between the two clusters is not doubted, but is distant. The name Tuu comes from a word common to both branches of the family for "person".

History

The ancestor of Tuu languages, Proto-Tuu, was presumably also spoken in or around the Kalahari desert, as a word for the gemsbok is reconstructable to Proto-Tuu.
There is evidence of substantial borrowing of words between Tuu languages and other Khoisan languages, including basic vocabulary. Khoekhoe in particular is thought to have a Tuu substrate.
Examples of borrowings from Khoe into Tuu include 'chest' and 'chin'. A root for 'louse' shared by some Khoe and Tuu languages has been suggested as deriving from a 'pre-Tuu/pre-Khoe substrate'.

Classification

The Tuu languages are not demonstrably related to any other language family, though they do share many similarities to the languages of the Kxʼa family. This is generally thought to be due to thousands of years of contact and mutual influence, but some scholars believe that the two families may eventually prove to be related.
The Tuu languages were once accepted as a branch of the now-obsolete Khoisan language family, and in that conception were called Southern Khoisan.

Languages

The languages and their relationships are thought to be as follows. In several places there is not enough data to distinguish language from dialect:
The ǃKwi branch of South Africa is moribund, with only one language extant, Nǁng, and that with only one elderly speaker. ǃKwi languages were once widespread across South Africa; the most famous, ǀXam, was the source of the modern national motto of that nation, '.
The Taa' branch of Botswana is more robust, though it also has only one surviving language, ǃXóõ, with 2,500 speakers.
Because many of the Tuu languages became extinct with little record, there is considerable confusion as to which of their many names represented separate languages or even dialects. The term "Vaal-Orange" was once used for ǂUngkue combined with several of the Eastern lects, which have since been separated.
There were presumably additional Tuu languages. Westphal studied a Taa variety variously rendered ǀŋamani, ǀnamani, Ngǀamani, ǀŋamasa. It is apparently now extinct. Bleek recorded another now-extinct variety, which she labeled 'S5', in the town of Khakhea; it is known in the literature as Kakia. Another in the Nossop area is known as Xaitia, Khatia, Katia, Kattea. Vaalpens, ǀKusi, and ǀEikusi'' evidently refer to the same variety as Xatia. Westphal lists them both as Nǀamani dialects, though Köhler lists only Khatia and classifies it as ǃKwi.
The Tuu languages, along with neighboring ǂʼAmkoe, are known for being the only languages in the world to have bilabial clicks as distinctive speech sounds. Taa, ǂʼAmkoe and neighboring Gǀui form a sprachbund with the most complex inventories of consonants in the world, and among the more complex inventories of vowels. All languages in these three families also have tone.