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The Khoisan languages are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of the 20th century, they were thought to be genealogically related to each other, but this is no longer accepted. They are now held to comprise three distinct language families and two language isolates.
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.
KhoisanKOY-sahn, or Khoe-Sān, is a catch-all term for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the Sān peoples. Khoisan populations traditionally speak click languages and are considered to be the historical communities throughout Southern Africa, remaining predominant until European colonisation in areas climatically unfavorable to Bantu (sorghum-based) agriculture, such as the Cape region, through to Namibia, where Khoekhoe populations of Nama and Damara people are prevalent groups, and Botswana. Considerable mingling with Bantu-speaking groups is evidenced by prevalence of click phonemes in many especially Xhosa Southern African Bantu languages.
Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia who have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with European settlers intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes, and Asian slaves of the region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s.
Khoekhoe are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Griqua, Gona, Nama, Khoemana and Damara nations. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots, a term now considered offensive.
Hottentot is a term that was historically used by Europeans to refer to the Khoekhoe, the indigenous nomadic pastoralists in South Africa.
The San peoples, or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their recent ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and South Africa.
Khoekhoe, also known by the ethnic terms Nama, Damara (ǂNūkhoegowab), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use of click consonants and therefore were formerly classified as Khoisan, a grouping now recognized as obsolete. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa primarily by three ethnic groups: Namakhoen, ǂNūkhoen, and Haiǁomkhoen.
KhweKWAY is a dialect continuum of the Khoe branch of the Khoe-Kwadi family of Namibia, Angola, Botswana, South Africa, and parts of Zambia, with some 8,000 speakers.
The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was a medieval state in South Africa located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers, south of Great Zimbabwe. The name is derived from a dialect of Shona or Venda but there is a possibility it comes from Kalanga The name might mean "Hill of Jackals" or "stone monuments". The kingdom was the first stage in a development that would culminate in the creation of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe in the 13th century, and with gold trading links to Rhapta and Kilwa Kisiwani on the African east coast. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe lasted about 140 years, and at its height the capital's population was about 5000 people.
ǃKungKUUNG (ǃXun), also known as Ju, is a dialect continuum spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola by the ǃKung people, constituting two or three languages. Together with the ǂʼAmkoe language, ǃKung forms the Kxʼa language family. ǃKung 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.
The Tuu languages, or Taa–ǃKwilanguages, are a language family consisting of two language clusters spoken in Botswana and South Africa. 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".
The Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars refers to a series of armed conflicts that took place in the latter half of the 17th century in what was then known as the Cape of Good Hope, in the area of present-day Cape Town, South Africa, fought primarily between Dutch colonisers, who came mostly from the Dutch Republic and the local African people, the indigenous Khoikhoi.
The Prehistory of South Africa lasts from the Middle Stone Age until the 17th century. Southern Africa was first reached by Homo sapiens before 130,000 years ago, possibly before 260,000 years ago. The region remained in the Late Stone Age until the first traces of pastoralism were introduced about 2,000 years ago. The Bantu migration reached the area now South Africa around the first decade of the 3rd century, over 1800 years ago. Early Bantu kingdoms were established in the 11th century. First European contact dates to 1488, but European colonization began in the 17th century.
The Nguni people are a linguistic cultural group of Bantu cattle herders who migrated from central Africa into Southern Africa, made up of ethnic groups formed from hunter-gatherer pygmy and proto-agrarians, with offshoots in neighboring colonially-created countries in Southern Africa. Swazi people live in both South Africa and Eswatini, while Ndebele people live in both South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Khoisan X, formerly Benny Alexander, was a South African political activist born in Kimberley, South Africa.
Khoisan revivalism is the phenomenon of individuals claiming to be Khoisan (descendants) and defending indigenous rights. The Khoisan revival movement aims to confirm and demarginalize the cultural identity of the Khoisan in modern-day South Africa. Khoisan revival is most active and likely to impact policy-making in Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The Koranna, Nama, San, Griqua, and Cape Khoi are among the Khoisan revivalist groups of the Western Cape.
References
- ↑ SA's first San party launches news24.com, 20 December 2008 (archive link)
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