ǂ’Amkoe language
| ǂ’Amkoe | |
|---|---|
| ǂHoan | |
| Region | Botswana |
|
Native speakers
|
20–50 Western ǂ’Amkoe; unknown number Eastern ǂ’Amkoe (2015) |
|
Kx'a
|
|
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | hoaa1235 |
ǂ’Amkoe, formerly called by the dialectal name ǂHoan (ǂHȍã, ǂHûân, ǂHua, ǂHû, or in native orthography ǂHȍȁn), is a severely endangered Kx'a language of Botswana. West ǂ’Amkoe, Taa (or perhaps the Tsaasi dialect of Taa), and Gǀui form the core of the Kalahari Basin sprachbund, and share a number of characteristic features, including some of the largest consonant inventories in the world. ǂ’Amkoe was shown to be related to the Juu languages by Honken and Heine (2010), and as a result was classified along with the !Kung language in the Kx'a language group.
ǂ’Amkoe is moribund and severely endangered. There are only a few dozen native speakers, most born before 1960 (one Sasi speaker was born in 1971, one N!aqriaxe speaker in 1969), many of whom no longer speak the language fluently. The first language of the younger generations, and even of many older, native speakers who no longer speak ǂ’Amkoe well, is Gǀui, a Khoe language, in the case of N!aqriaxe; Kgalagadi, a Bantu language that is the local lingua franca, in the case of ǂHoan; and the Ngwato dialect of Tswana, in the case of Sasi.
ǂ’Amkoe [ǂ̃ˀām̄kòè] is spoken in three areas in southeastern Botswana, corresponding to three dialects. Recent surveys found the following locations:
Nǃaqriaxe and ǂHoan are closest, collectively referred to as West ǂ’Amkoe; Sasi is referred to as East ǂ’Amkoe.
There are some phonological differences between the Nǃaqriaxe spoken around Dutlwe and that spoken around Motokwe and Khekhenye. Sasi is a "mutually intelligible language" with differences in phonology and lexicon. There have been no systematic studies of Sasi, though as of 2015, Collins is engaged in fieldwork. The East and West populations had no knowledge of each other, but when brought together in 1996, they were able to communicate, and found the differences amusing.
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