// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did ǁXegwi say to its friend? "You click with me.
| ǁXegwi | |
|---|---|
| ǁXʼegwi | |
| giǁkxi꞉gwi | |
| Native to | South Africa |
| Region | Lake Chrissie |
| Ethnicity | Tlouʼeʼthle[1] |
| Extinct | 1988, with the death of Jopi Mabinda[2] |
Tuu
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xeg |
| Glottolog | xegw1238 |
 | |
ǁXegwi or ǁXʼegwi (pronounced /ˈzɛɡwiː/ ZEH-gwee; ǁXegwi: giǁkxi꞉gwi), also known as Batwa, is an extinct ǃKwi language spoken at Lake Chrissie in South Africa, near the Swazi border. The last known speaker, Jopi Mabinda (also Jobi Mabinda[3]), was murdered in 1988.[4] However, a reporter for the South African newspaper Mail & Guardian reports that ǁXʼegwi may still have been spoken in the Chrissiesmeer district in 2011.[1]
The ǁXʼegwi name for their language has been spelled giǁkwi꞉gwi or kiǁkwi꞉gwi. Their name for themselves, Tlouʼeʼthle 'people of rock and water',[1] has been transcribed tlou tle and kxlou-kxle, presumably renderings of [k͡𝼄ouk͡𝼄e]. The Nguni (Zulu and Swazi) called them (a)batwa, amaNkqeshe and amaNgqwigqwi; the Sotho called them Baroa~Barwa.[5]
Phonology
[edit]Tone
[edit]From Köhler's material, it appears that ǁXʼegwi had a four-tone inventory.
Consonants
[edit]ǁXʼegwi lost the abrupt clicks (the various manners of ǂ and ǃ) found in its relatives. It reacquired ǃ from Nguni Bantu languages, but clicks remained relatively infrequent, compared to other Tuu languages. It also had a series of uvular plosives not found in other Tuu languages.[6]
Labialized consonants are recorded, both pulmonic and lingual; Honken (2020) interprets [CʷV] as /CoV/.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| median | lateral | median | lateral | ||||||
| Plosive | tenuis | p | t | k | q | ʔ | |||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | qʰ | |||||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ɢ | |||||
| ejective | tʼ | qʼ | |||||||
| velarized | |||||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | (ts) | tʃ | ||||||
| aspirated | kɬʰ | tʃʰ | |||||||
| voiced | dz | dl | dʒ | ||||||
| ejective | tsʼ | kɬʼ | tʃʼ | kxʼ | |||||
| velarized | tsx tx | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ɬ | ʃ | x | h | ||
| voiced | β | z | ʒ | ||||||
| Sonorant | r | (l) | |||||||
/ts/ is a marginal phoneme. /l/ and /f/ are exclusive to loanwords.[7]
Vowels
[edit]There is a great deal of variation between nasal vowels, [Ṽ], and oral vowels with a nasal coda, [Vŋ], so the phonemic status of nasal vowels is unclear. All researchers also transcribe long vowels (not shown):[7]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i ĩ | u ũ |
| Mid | e (ẽ) | o (õ) |
| Low | a ã | |
The non-modal vowels are transcribed by all researchers as glottalized; Traill (1979) interprets them as pharyngealized as in other Tuu languages.[7] We transcribe them here as creaky voice:
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | ḭ ḭ̃ | ṵ ṵ̃ |
| Mid | ḛ | o̰ |
| Low | a̰ ã̰ | |
Syntax
[edit]Word order
[edit]ǁXʼegwi exhibits subject–verb–object (SVO) word order, as can be seen in the following examples:[3]
ʼi ǀxe tlwa ʼin ʼuye 'we speak a matter now'
ʼn ǀxeya ʼe la giǁkxi꞉gwi 'I speak Bushman'
Sample text
[edit]- Marriage[3]
ʼi
tleŋwe
ǀhwi
ʼiye
ga
ʼi
ǁhãʼaziye
ʼĩ
ya.
We kill a bird and we go to lobola with it.
ʼi
khwi
ʼi
tleŋ
ǀhuriŋ
ʼiye
ga
ʼi
ǁhãʼazi
ʼi
ya.
(Again) we kill a spur-winged goose to go and lobola by means of it.
ʼĩ
se
ʼnxǀe
ʼe
ǁni
ki
ʼa
xwa.
I arrive and enter the house of her mother.
ʼiŋ
se
ʼŋ
gyosi
ʼe
khëu
ǃkʼalo.
I arrive and put (it) down.
ʼŋ
ku-ge
ha
ʼe
na
ha
ǀhuriŋ
ki
we.
I say: "There is your spur-winged goose, I lobola with it."
yebo-ge
han
luga-ge
ʼa
ga
ʼuwa
ha
ʼe
na
ǁʼeleʼe
ʼu
tʼãʼãʼũ
thã-ge.
"Yes it is good, you may take this child, go well!"
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 Davie, Kevin. "The secret pool of surviving Bushmen at Chrissiesmeer". The Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original on 2011-07-29. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
- ↑ ǁXegwi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- 1 2 3 Potgieter, E. F. (1955). The disappearing Bushmen of Lake Chrissie - a preliminary survey. Hidding-Currie publ. of the University of South Africa. Vol. 1 (With notes on the language by Dirk Ziervogel ed.). Pretoria, South Africa: J. L. van Schaik.
- ↑ Traill, A. (2002). "The Khoesan languages". In Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.). Language in South Africa. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486692.003. ISBN 978-0-521-79105-2.
- ↑ Treis, Yvonne (1998). "Names of Khoisan languages and their variants". In Schladt, Mathias (ed.). Language, identity, and conceptualization among the Khoisan. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. pp. 463–503. ISBN 978-3-89645-143-9.
- ↑ Traill, Anthony (1999). Extinct: South African Khoisan Languages (CD).
- 1 2 3 Honken, Henry (2020). "ǁXʼegwi". In Vossen, Rainer; Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 670–681.
External links
[edit]- ǁXʼegwi basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
- Sound recording of Jopi Mabinda speaking ǁXegwi
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