SAN LANGUAGES

also called Bushman, Khoisan languages spoken by San tribesmen in southern Africa. The San languages are often divided by scholars into three groups: Northern San, including !Khung and //Kh'au-//'en (//u//e or Auen); Southern San, including /'Auni, //Ng!Ke, and Khomani; and Central San, including Naro, /Guikhoe, and //Ganakhoe. Although scholars formerly believed the San languages to belong to a different language family from the Khoikhoin (Hottentot) languages, increasing knowledge of these languages has led most scholars to include them all in the Khoisan language family. The Central San languages are especially closely related to the Khoikhoin languages, with which they are often placed in a Central Khoisan, or Khoi, group. Some scholars consider Northern San and Southern San to be separate branches of the Khoisan language family and call them North Khoisan and South Khoisan, respectively; other scholars group them together as the San branch of the Khoisan family. The most striking feature of the San languages, as of all Khoisan languages, is their extensive use of click sounds. Some San languages have a greater variety of clicks than do the Khoikhoin languages; in addition to the dental click (written as c or /), the palatal or cerebral click (written as q or ! ), the alveolar click (written as v or ), and the lateral click (written as x or //), the San languages also have a labial click (written as ) that sounds much like a kiss, as well as a guttural click (written as ) and a semi-labial click (written as ). Although the Central San languages distinguish gender, as do the Khoikhoin languages, the Northern and Southern San languages have no system of gender inflection except infrequently in pronouns, and, in the Southern San group, distinctions of number are usually not expressed.