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Kx'a

African Language Families

Kx'a, also called Ju-hoan, is a language family of southern Africa spoken across Angola, Namibia and Botswana, established in 2010 by Henry Honken and Bernd Heine after the relationship between its two branches had been suspected for roughly a decade. It comprises the Kung, or Juu, dialect cluster, including Northern, Central and Southern Kung, and the now moribund Amkoe branch, which had previously been misclassified together with the Tuu languages. The family's own name derives from a reconstructed root meaning earth or ground, shared across its branches. Kx'a is one of three primary indigenous language families of southern Africa, alongside Khoe-Kwadi and Tuu.

Facts
Region
Southern Africa 1
Proto-Language Status
Established as a family in 2010 by Honken and Heine, linking ǂʼAmkoe with the ǃKung dialect cluster, a relationship that had been suspected for a decade; ǂʼAmkoe had previously been lumped in with the unrelated Tuu languages, and the two branches of Kx'a share little beyond typological features such as bilabial clicks. 1
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Kxʼa Languages
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Introduction, second sentence
    Along with the Tuu languages and Khoe languages, they are one of three language families indigenous to southern Africa, which are typologically similar due to areal effects.
  • Introduction, first sentence
    a language family established in 2010 linking the ǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with the ǃKung (Juu) dialect cluster, a relationship that had been suspected for a decade
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