Khoe-Kwadi is one of the world's primary language families, uniting the living Khoe languages of Namibia and the Kalahari Desert region with the extinct Kwadi language of Angola. Linguists Tom Guldemann, Edward Elderkin and Anne-Maria Fehn established the relationship on the strength of roughly 50 shared lexical correspondences and a common verb construction, in which a dependent verb takes a suffix while a finite verb remains unmarked. The Khoe branch is traced back some 2,000 to 3,000 years to an origin in the middle Zambezi Valley. The Sandawe language isolate of Tanzania has been proposed as the family's nearest relative on the strength of a similar pronoun system, though not enough data exists yet to establish the regular sound correspondences that would confirm the link.
Facts
RegionNamibia and the Kalahari Desert region (Khoe languages), and Angola (the extinct Kwadi language) 1 Proto-Language StatusThe relationship between the living Khoe languages and the extinct, poorly attested Kwadi language was worked out by Tom Guldemann, Edward Elderkin and Anne-Maria Fehn; about 50 lexical correspondences and a common verb construction have been identified, though Kwadi's poor attestation makes it hard to tell which shared words are cognates rather than loans. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Khoe-Kwadi Languages
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction, first sentence
The Khoe-Kwadi languages are a family consisting of the Khoe languages of southern Africa and the poorly attested extinct Kwadi language of Angola.
Introduction, second sentence
The relationship has been worked out by Tom Güldemann, Edward Elderkin, and Anne-Maria Fehn.
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