KHOIKHOIN LANGUAGES

also called Hottentot, group of Khoisan languages most closely related to the Central San languages, with which they are placed by many scholars in the Central Khoisan, or Khoi, group. The most important of the Khoikhoin languages is Nama, spoken by Khoikhoins, Bergdamas, and members of a small group of San (Bushmen); all these groups live in Namibia. Although several Khoisan languages have been recorded in writing by linguists and missionaries, Nama is the only Khoisan language that is used in a written form by its native speakers. Other important Khoikhoin languages are !Kora (also called Korana) and the extinct Griqua (or Grikwa) language. The most striking feature of the Khoikhoin languages, as of all Khoisan languages, is their extensive use of click sounds (see click). The Khoikhoin languages express number, gender, and case by means of suffixes. The languages usually have three categories of grammatical number (singular, dual, and plural) and three genders or classes of nouns (masculine, feminine, and common). Particles and inflectional elements seldom contain click consonants, which occur almost exclusively in word roots. Verb, noun, and adjective roots contain, or formerly contained, two syllables. Some scholars in the past believed, usually on cultural rather than linguistic grounds, that the Khoikhoin languages were related to the languages formerly called Hamitic, but increasing knowledge of these two groups has led most specialists to abandon this belief.