Nǁng language

Nǁng
Nǀu
Spoken in	South Africa
Ethnicity	Nǁnǂe (ǂKhomani)
Native speakers	7  (2010)
Language family	Tuu ǃKwi Nǁng
Dialects	Nǀu (Nǀuu) ǁʼAu ǂKhomani Nǀhuki
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ngh
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Nǁng or Nǁngǃke, commonly known by its primary dialect Nǀu, is a moribund Tuu (Khoisan) language once spoken in South Africa. It is no longer spoken often on a daily basis, as the speakers live in different villages. The name ǂKhomani is used for the entire people by the South African government, but the descendents of ǂKhomani-dialect speakers now speak Khoekhoe.

Nǁng belongs to the Tuu (Taʼa–ǃKwi) language family, with extinct ǀXam being its closest relative and ǃXóõ language its closest living relative. Most speak Nǀu dialect, and this is the name the language appeared under when it was rediscovered. However, two speak ǁʼAu dialect, and reject the label Nǀu. Of these names, the easiest for English speakers to pronounce is Nǀu. The pipe (slash) symbol represents a click like the English interjection tsk! tsk! used to express pity or shame; "Nǀu" is pronounced like noo, with a tsk! pronounced in the middle of the [n]. The double-pipe in "Nǁng" is pronounced like the tchick! used to spur on a horse; the name is pronounced like the ng of sung with this click near the beginning.

History

Nǁng prospered through the 19th century, but encroaching non-ǃKwi languages and acculturation threatened it, like most other Khoisan languages. The language was mainly displaced by Afrikaans and Nama, especially after speakers started migrating to towns in the 1930s and found themselves surrounded by non-Nǁng-speaking people. In 1973 their language was declared extinct, and the remaining Nǁnǂe ("ǂKhomani") were evicted from the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park.

In the 1990s, linguists located 101-year-old Elsie Vaalbooi, who could still speak Nǁng. Anthony Traill interviewed her in 1997. The South African San Institute soon became involved in the pursuit of information on the Nǁng language, and with the help of Vaalbooi they tracked down 25 other people scattered by the eviction who were able to speak or at least understand the language. Thabo Mbeki handed over 400 km² of land to the Nǁnǂe in 1999, and 250 km² of land within the park in 2002. Vaalbooi came up with the Nǁng motto of Sa ǁʼa ǃainsi uinsi (also written Sa //a !aĩsi 'uĩsi) "We move towards a better life" for her rehabilitated people. This was also adopted as the official motto for the Northern Cape Province. At the time there were twenty elderly speakers, eight of whom lived in the Western Cape province signed over to them. As of 2007, fewer than ten are still alive in South Africa, and a few more in Botswana; none live with another speaker, and their daily languages are Khoekhoe and Tswana, respectively. The younger generations of ǂKhomani are proud Nama speakers, and have little affinity to Nǁng, so there is little chance of saving the language. Linguist Nigel Crawhall is heading a team to document what remains.

Recent research on Nǁng led by Amanda Miller of Cornell University has helped describe the physics of its clicks, leading to a better understanding of click sounds in general.^[1]

Speech sounds

Nǁng has one of the more complex sound inventories of the world's languages. It has a tone system similar to that of the Juu and the other Tuu languages, which is not covered here.

Vowels

Like most languages in southern Africa, Nǁng has five vowel qualities. These may occur long or short, diphthongized, epiglottalized, and, when long, nasalized.

Modal	i, iː	e, eː	ɑ, ɑː	o, oː	u, uː
Nasal	ĩː		ɑ̃ː		ũː
Epiglottalized		(eʢ, eːʢ)	ɑʢ, ɑːʢ	oʢ, oːʢ	(uʢ ?)
Nasal epiglottalized			ɑ̃ːʢ	õːʢ

Nǁng is the only Khoisan language known to have an epiglottalized front vowel, /e^ʢ/, though this is rare, attested in only three words, in one of which it is long. /u^ʢ/ is also rare, and is thought to be an allophone of /o^ʢ/.

Modal	ɑe̯	əi̯	ɑo̯	əu̯	oɑ̯	oe̯	ui̯
Nasal		ə̃ĩ̯		ə̃ũ̯	õɑ̯̃	õẽ̯	ũĩ̯
Epiglottalized	ae̯ʢ		ao̯ʢ		oɑ̯ʢ	oe̯ʢ
Nasal epiglottalized	ɑ̃ẽ̯ʢ		ɑ̃õ̯ʢ			õẽ̯ʢ

Consonants

The majority of Nǁng consonants are clicks. It was once thought that Khoisan languages distinguish velar and uvular clicks, but recent research into Nǁng, and reevaluation of the data on ǃXóõ, indicates that, for these languages at least, the distinction is one of pure clicks versus click-plosive contours.

Pulmonic consonants		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ̩
Plosive	voiced	b		ɟ	ɡ
	tenuis	p		c	k	q	(ʔ)
	aspirated			cʰ	kʰ
Affricate			t͡s	cᵡ
Fricative	voiceless		s			χ
	voiced		z				(ɦ)
Liquid			ɾ ~ l

The velar nasal /ŋ̩/ only occurs as a syllabic nucleus. A glottal stop [ʔ] begins a few words; it's not clear at this point if it is phonemic. /t, d, f/ are found in unassimilated loanwords. The difference between [ɾ]~[l] is allophonic as well as dialectal.

Glottalic consonants	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Affricate		t͡sʼ		kᵡʼ	qᵡʼ

The amount of frication on /kᵡʼ/ and /qᵡʼ/ is variable; they may surface as ejective plosives, [kʼ] and [qʼ].

Lingual consonants		Labio- uvular	Denti- pharyngeal	Alveo-uvular		Palato- pharyngeal
				central	lateral
Nasal	voiced	ᵑʘ	ᵑǀ	ᵑǃ	ᵑǁ	ᵑǂ
	glottalized	ᵑ̊ʘˀ	ᵑ̊ǀˀ	ᵑ̊ǃˀ	ᵑ̊ǁˀ	ᵑ̊ǂˀ
	aspirated		ᵑ̊ǀʰ	ᵑ̊ǃʰ	ᵑ̊ǁʰ	ᵑ̊ǂʰ
Plosive	voiced		ᶢǀ	ᶢǃ	ᶢǁ	ᶢǂ
	tenuis	ʘ	ǀ	ǃ	ǁ	ǂ
	aspirated		ǀʰ	ǃʰ	ǁʰ	ǂʰ

These are simple clicks. The traditional term "velaric" is something of a misnomer, for the rear articulation is further back than the velum, and indeed further back than Nǁng /q/. Miller et al. prefer the term "lingual" for this airstream mechanism; they also reject the existence of click "accompaniments", using the IPA symbols to represent both points of articulation rather than solely the anterior articulation. Besides being motivated phonetically, this has the benefit of better illustrating the parallels between clicks and pulmonic consonants.

In the above rubric, the first element of the name is the forward articulation, and the second is the rear articulation.

Linguo-pulmonic consonants		Labio- uvular	Denti- pharyngeal	Alveo-uvular		Palato- pharyngeal
				central	lateral
Plosive	tenuis	ʘ͡q	ǀ͡q	ǃ͡q	ǁ͡q	ǂ͡q
	aspirated		ǀ͡qʰ	ǃ͡qʰ	ǁ͡qʰ	ǂ͡qʰ
Affricate		ʘ͡qᵡ	ǀ͡qᵡ	ǃ͡qᵡ	ǁ͡qᵡ	ǂ͡qᵡ

These are airstream contour consonants, which start off with a lingual (velaric) airstream mechanism and finish with a pulmonic airstream (while affricates are manner contour consonants, starting as plosives and finishing as fricatives). Traditionally these were considered to be uvular clicks, because the uvular or pharyngeal closure is audible, but in fact the rear closure of all Nǁng clicks is uvular or pharyngeal. (The distinction between uvular and pharyngeal is not represented here.)

Linguo-glottalic consonants		Labio- uvular	Denti- pharyngeal	Alveo-uvular		Palato- pharyngeal
				central	lateral
Affricate			ǀ͡qᵡʼ	ǃ͡qᵡʼ	ǁ͡qᵡʼ	ǂ͡qᵡʼ

These differ from the previous consonants in releasing into an ejective. As in simple ejectives, they are all affricates.

References

• Miller, Amanda L.; Brugman, Johanna; Sands, Bony; Namaseb, Levi; Exter, Mats; Collins, Chris (2007), The Sounds of Nǀuu: Place and Airstream Contrasts, Working papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory, 16, http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/amiller/Miller_WPCPL16.pdf 

External links

• Nǀu sound files at Cornell
• South African San Institute
• Ethnologue report on Nǀu
• At Forvo

Notes

1. ^ "Classifying "Clicks": New language technology clears up 100-year-old mystery". NSF. 2009-07-14. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=115186&org=NSF&from=news. Retrieved 2009-07-29.