Shua language
| Shua | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Botswana |
|
Native speakers
|
4,100 Shua and Tshwa (2008) |
|
Khoe
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog |
shua1254 Shuatsix1234 Ts'ixa
|
Shua /ˈʃuːə/, or Shwakhwe, is a Khoe language of Botswana. It is spoken in central Botswana (in Nata and its surroundings), and in parts of the Chobe District in the extreme north of Botswana. There are approximately 6,000 speakers (Cook 2004). The term Shwakhwe means people (khwe) from the salty area (shwa).
The ongoing loss of alveolar and palatal clicks in the Eastern Kalahari Khoe languages has resulted in doublets in Ts'ixa dialect.
Unlike most Khoisan languages, but like Nama, the most neutral word order is SOV, though word order is relatively free. As with most Khoisan languages, there are postpositions. There is a tense-aspect marker ke which often appears in second position in affirmative sentences in the present tense, giving X Aux S O V order (e.g. S Aux O V).
For example,
This marker appears first in certain subordinate clauses in a manner reminiscent of V2 languages such as German, where a clause-initial complementizer is in complementary distribution with a second position phenomenon (in German, it would be the finite verb which appears in second position).
Shwa is a dialect cluster.
The term Hietshware (Hietʃware, Hietʃo) is used for varieties of both Shua and its sister-language Tshwa.
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