Ju|ʼhoan (English:/ˈdʒuːtwæn/JOO-twan,^[2][3]Juǀʼhoan:[ʒuᵑ̊ǀʰwã]), also known asSouthern orSoutheastern ǃKung orǃXun, is the southern variety of theǃKungdialect continuum, spoken in northeasternNamibia and the Northwest District ofBotswana bySan Bushmen who largely identify themselves asJuǀʼhoansi. Several regional dialects are distinguished: Epukiro, Tsumǃkwe, Rundu, Omatako andǂKxʼauǁʼein, with Tsumǃkwe being the best described and often taken as representative.

The nameJuǀʼhoan (in the plural:Juǀʼhoansi) is also renderedŽuǀʼhõa – or occasionallyZhuǀʼhõa orDzuǀʼhõa, depending on orthography. Depending on the classification, it is considered the Southern or Southeastern variety of the ǃKung (also renderedǃXun) language cluster. It may thus be referred to asSouthern ǃKung,Southeastern ǃXun, etc.Juǀʼhoan is based on the wordju 'people', which is also applied to the language cluster. (seeǃKung languages for variants of those names).

• When a front vowel /e/ or /i/ follows a consonant with a back vowel constraint (e.g. clicks with uvular articulation), an [ə] is inserted before the front vowel, written 'a' in the orthography. For example, mi |'ae (myself) reads /mi |'əe/.
• The diphthong /oa/ may be realized as [wa].

Juǀʼhoan has five vowel qualities, which may benasalized,glottalized,murmured, or combinations of these, and most of these possibilities occur both long and short. The qualities/a/ and/o/ may also bepharyngealized andstrident (epiglottalized). Besides, it is atonal language with four tones: very high, high, low and very low tones.^[4] Thus, there are a good 30 vowel phonemes, perhaps more, depending on one's analysis. There are, in addition, many vowel sequences anddiphthongs.

Juǀʼhoan has an unusually large number of consonants, as typical for ǃKung. The following occur at the beginnings of roots. For brevity, only the alveolar clicks are listed with the other consonants; the complete set of clicks is found below.

Tenuis and modally voiced consonants (blue) may occur with any vowel quality. However, other consonants (grey, transcribed with a superscript diacritic to their right) do not occur in the same root as murmured, glottalized, or epiglottalized vowels.

The prevoiced aspirated and ejective consonants, both pulmonic and clicks, contain a voiceless interval, which Miller (2003) attributes to a larger glottal opening than is found in Hindustani breathy-voiced consonants. Phonetically, however, they are voice contours, starting out voiced but becoming voiceless for the aspiration or ejection.^[5]

The phonemic status of[ʔ],[dz] and[dʒ] is uncertain.[ʔ] may be epenthetic before vowel-initial words; alternatively, it may be that no word may begin with a vowel./mʱ/ occurs only in a single morpheme, the plural diminutive enclitic/mʱi/./f/ and/l/ (not shown) only occur in loan words, and some accounts posit a/j/ and/w/. Labials (/p,pʰ,b,b͡pʰ,m/) are very rare initially, thoughβ̞ is common between vowels. Velar stops (oral and nasal) are rare initially and very rare medially.

The uvulo-ejective consonants are analyzed as epiglottalized in Miller-Ockhuizen (2003). They have uvular frication and glottalization, and are similar to consonants inNǀu described as uvular ejective by Miller et al. (2009).^{[full citation needed]} Their epiglottal character may be a phonetic consequence of the raised larynx involved in making them ejective.

Only a small set of consonants occur between vowels within roots. These are:

Medial[β̞,ɾ,m,n] (green) are very common;[ɣ,ŋ] are rare, and the other medial consonants occur in only a very few roots, many of them loans.[β̞,ɾ,ɣ] are generally analyzed as allophones of/b,d,ɡ/. However,[ɾ] especially may correspond to multiple root-initial consonants.

Juǀʼhoan has 48 click consonants. There are four click "types": dental, lateral, alveolar, and palatal, each of which found in twelve series or "accompaniments" (combinations of manner, phonation, and contour). These are perfectly normal consonants in Juǀʼhoan, and indeed are preferred over non-clicks in word-initial position.

As above, tenuis and modally voiced consonants (blue) may occur with any vowel quality. However, other consonants (grey, transcribed with a superscript diacritic to their right) do not occur in the same root as murmured, glottalized, or epiglottalized vowels.

Glottalized clicks occur almost exclusively before nasal vowels. This suggests they are nasalized, as in most if not all other languages with glottalized clicks. The nasalization would not be audible during the click itself due to the glottalization, which would prevent any nasal airflow, but the velum would be lowered, potentially nasalizing adjacent vowels.

The 'uvularized' clicks are actuallylinguo-pulmonic contours,[ǃ͡qχ], etc. The 'uvulo-ejective' clicks areheterorganic affricates, and equivalent tolinguo-glottalic consonants transcribed[ǃ͡kxʼ], etc., in other languages (Miller 2011).^{[full citation needed]}

SeeEkoka ǃXung for a related variety with a somewhat larger click inventory.

Ju|ʼhoan is the only variety of ǃKung to be written. Three orthographies have been used over the past half century, two based on pipe letters for clicks and one using only the basic Latin alphabet.

In the 1960s, the South African Department of Education set about establishing official orthographies for the languages ofSouthwest Africa (Namibia). Jan Snyman was selected to develop an orthography for the then-unwritten Juǀʼhoasi, which was accepted in 1969. In this orthography, the name of the language is spelled Žuǀʼhõasi. A slightly modified form (Snyman 1975) is shown below.^[6]

In the 1980s, theBible Society of South Africa requested a new orthography, one that used only letters of the Latin alphabet, avoided diacritics as much as possible, and conformed as much as possible to the conventions ofAfrikaans. This second orthography was accepted in 1987, in which the language is spelled Zjuc'hôa.

A third orthography was developed by the Juǀwa Bushman Development Foundation in 1994. This is the orthography that is currently in use in Namibia; there does not seem to be any publication in Botswana.

The three orthographies, along with the IPA, are compared below. Tone is evidently unmarked.

The modern (1994) orthography also hasih, eh, ah, oh, uh for breathy (murmured) vowels, andihn, ahn, ohn, uhn for breathy nasal vowels. However, Snyman maintains that these are positional variants of low-tone vowels, and not needed in an orthography (at least, not if tone were marked). Glottalized vowels are written with an apostrophe in all three orthographies.

Juǀ'hoan is anisolating,^[7] head-initial language that follows a fairly strictSVO word order.^[8] There are some exceptions; for instance, interrogatives are formed using the particleré, which is placed immediately after the subject, but it is also possible to place this emphasis on the object by moving it to the beginning of the sentence and following it withré instead, as in:^[9]

Tjù ré mí ho.

Do I find thehouse?

Nouns are grouped into fivenoun classes based onanimacy and species.^[10] Noun class in Juǀ’hoan is entirely covert on the noun and revealed only by agreement behavior between the noun and pronominal elements.^[11] In other words, nouns do notinflect for class; the only difference between nouns of different classes is the different sets of thirdperson pronouns associated with each class.^[12]

Noun class distinctions are wholly uninfluenced by literal, physical characteristics, and this covert pronominal class marking structure may have resulted fromlanguage contact.^[13] Juǀ’hoan has noarticles nor any other distinction ofdefiniteness or indefiniteness.^[14]

Nouns inflect for pluralnumber, which is formed by thesuffixing of-si or-sín or by no change,-Ø. Many nouns have irregular plurals, such asjù (person, pluraljú), and the plural form of a noun is not predictable.^[15]

Each noun class has its own associatedpronoun set, constituting the only morphological difference between noun classes.^[16] For example, the noungǂhòà, "dog", belongs to Class 2, and may be referred to with the third person pronounha, whereasgǀúí, "forest", belongs to Class 5, which haská as its corresponding pronoun.^[17]

The noun classes and their pronoun sets are as follows:

Demonstrative pronouns are as follows:^[18]

Pronouns are inflected for number but notcase orgender, and unlike nouns, they have three numbers, singular,dual and plural, as well asinclusive and exclusive forms.^[19]

The Juǀ’hoan personal pronouns are:^[20]

An indefinite pronoun, equivalent to English “one” can be expressed usingjù (“person”) as in:^[21]

Jù óá dcàá.

One does not steal.

Juǀ'hoan nouns are derived by the addition of various suffixes to a verb.^[22]

Juǀ'hoan verbs areattributive^[23] and unconjugated for tense;aspectual distinctions of time are indicated adverbially.^[24]

Verb phrases are negated by the particleǀóá, which precedes the verb.^[25] Verbs can also benegated by the simple particle compoundǀóá kú.^[26]

Mí réǀóá !hún n!haì.

I donot kill the lion.^[27]

Reversing the components of this negation compound toǀóá kú implies that the negated action has never or will never happen, as in:^[28]

Eǀóá kú ’m !há.

Wenever eat meat.

Most distinctions oftense are adverbial constructions using specific adverbs of time,^[29] such as:

• |ámà hè (today)
• goàqǂ’àn (yesterday)
• n!homà (tomorrow)

Less commonly, a simple past tense can be indicated by the particlekoh, and the imperfective aspect bykú, both of which precede the verb:^[30]

Hakoh ǃóá mí.

Shetold me.

Ha kákú úá Tjùm!kúí.

Heis going to Tsumkwe now.

In combination,koh andkú equate to a habitual action, as in:^[31]

Sìǃákoh kú ’m ǃhá nǀè’ésí.

Theyused to eat meat only.

With very few exceptions, theimperative form is identical to a standard present tense verb.Orthographically, this kind of imperative is indicated by a double exclamation mark.^[32]

G!à’ámá!!

Enter!

A more emphatic imperative is expressed by the addition of the second person pronoun, and negative imperatives are expressed by the verbnǀǀah (“leave”) or its imperfective formnǀǀah kú, which is often abbreviated tonǀǀaú.^[33]

Nǀǀaú tzà!!

Don’t sleep.

Using a first or third person pronoun before an imperative implies a sense of obligation.^[34]

M!á ú!!

Weshould go.

It is also possible to soften a command by using a special form of the second person pronoun,há, alongside the verbal particlem.^[35]

Há m hoe!!

Please come.

Some verbs have irregular forms when taking a plural subject or object.Transitive verbs take the irregular plural form when the object is plural, whereas intransitive verbs take the irregular plural when the subject is plural.^[36] Some irregulars are shown below:

Thus:

Mí n|ángá dà’á tzí.

I sat at the fire.

M!á g!hòóá dà’á tzí.

We sat at the fire.

The particles|’àè (“self”) and|’àèsì (“selves”) expressreflexive action.^[37]

Ekú séaé |’àèsì kò spírí.

We are looking atourselves in the mirror.

Reciprocity is expressed via the pronounkhòè (“each other”). The preceding verb must always take the transitive suffix -a.^[38]

Sá áréá khòè.

They loveeach other.

Oftentimes, reflexive or reciprocal constructions are used to indicate the equivalent of the Englishpassive voice, which does not formally exist in Juǀ'hoan.^[39]

Intransitive verbs can be made transitive by the addition of the suffix -a, which takes a tone identical to the last tone of the verb itself.^[40] If this suffix is added to a verb which is already inherently transitive, the verb becomes a “double transitive,” allowing a second noun phrase to come after the first.^[41] The second phrase must follow the transitive particlekò and will have an aspectual significance, as in:^[42]

Ha kúǁohma !aìhnkò g|úí.

He waschopping the treein the forest.

Creissels (2018) labels these verbs asditransitive because multiple verb phrases can be strung together bykò (a word he describes as an “interposition”) against the nominalizing suffix -a, regardless of function.^[43] Baker and Collins (2006) argue that this linking function ofkò governssyntactic relationships between differing aspectual distinctions, a feature that Juǀ'hoan shares with other Khoisan languages.^[44]

Juǀ'hoan lacks prepositions; in place of them, the relative positions of objects are expressed using nouns that function asLocative indicators.^[45]

These nouns are metaphorically “possessed” by the object that they modify, necessitating a possessive construction.^[46] Furthermore, if the possessor object is qualified by an adjective, the possessive particleǁ’àn must be used, as in:^[47]

Tjù n!a’àn ǁ’àn ká n!áng.

[house bigPOSS innards]

in the big house

In many other cases, this prepositional information is encoded directly into the verb, as in:[48]

• nǃáú (go over)
• ǁ’àbà (step over)
• ǁxàrì (go through)

Verbs of this sort can be used to qualify the action of another verb in sequence, as in:^[49]

Tzàmà n!òm n!áú tjù.

[bird fly go-over house]

The bird flew over the house.

These are known asserial verbs, wherein the second verb in the sequence qualifies the direction or location of the first verb.^[50] If the second verb in this two-verb sequence is transitive, then the noun phrase following it would be its object, but if the second verb is intransitive, then the following noun phrase would be its subject. Thus:^[51]

Utò nǂàq’ú!àòjù.

[car knock fall-over person]

The car knockedthe person over.

Since Juǀ'hoan verbs are attributive, there are relatively few true adjectives in the language. Adjectives follow the noun^[52] and most have singular and plural forms (ending in either -sì or -sín), although a few have only one or the other, and there are some adjectives withsuppletive plural forms.^[53] The following is a comprehensive list of all adjectives in Juǀ'hoan, together with their plural forms.^[54]

• ján ǀàm – Good day
• ǂxáí – Good morning
• ǁáú tzà – Good evening
• gǁàán - Good afternoon
• à ján – How are you?
• ǁáú gè – Goodbye
• jù – person
• jú – people
• gǃú,dohmsoan – water
• nǃaisi u – Bon voyage

Following are some sample texts in the Juǀʼhoan language.^[55][56]

• 1980 –The Gods Must Be Crazy
• 1980 –Nǃai, the Story of a ǃKung Woman
• 2003 –The Journey of Man

• Dickens, Patrick J. (2005).A Concise Grammar of Juǀʼhoan With a Juǀʼhoan–English Glossary and a Subject Index. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.ISBN 978-3-89645-145-3.
• Baker, M. C. and Collins, C. (2006) “Linkers and internal structure of vP.”Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 24: 307-354.
• Creissels, D. (2018).Interpositions, a rare type of grammatical word. Syntax of the World’s Languages 8, Paris.
• Miller-Ockhuizen, Amanda (2003).The phonetics and phonology of gutturals: case study from Juǀʼhoansi(PDF). Routledge.ISBN 0-203-50640-5. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 26 January 2024.
• Pratchett, L. (2021). “An areal and typological appraisal of gender in Ju.”STUF – Language Typology and Universals. 74: 279-302.
• Pratchett, L. (2025). “Multilingualism and Juǀ’hoan language variation enGENDERed in a Namibian boarding school.” In: Ines Fiedler and Lee J. Pratchett (eds.),Areas, families, and pools aplenty: a Festschrift for Tom Güldemann, 31-46. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. DOI: 10.18452/32635.
• Snyman, Jan W. (1983). "Zuǀʼhõasi, a Khoisan Dialect of South West Africa/Namibia". In Dihoff, Ivan R. (ed.).Current Approaches to African Linguistics. Vol. 1. pp. 115–125.doi:10.1515/9783112420065-007.ISBN 9783112420058.
• Snyman, Jan W. (1997). "A preliminary classification of the ǃXũũ and Zuǀʼhõasi Dialects". In Haacke, W. H. G.; Elderkin, E. D. (eds.).Namibian Languages: Reports and Papers. Namibian African Studies. Vol. 4. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. pp. 21–106.ISBN 978-3-89645-080-7.
• Snyman, Jan W.An Official Orthography for Žuǀʼhõasi Kokxʼoi. Pretoria.

• Juǀʼhoan basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Juǀʼhoan language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Kx'a languages
• Languages of Botswana
• Languages of Namibia

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