| Kxʼa | |
|---|---|
| Ju–ǂHoan | |
| Geographic distribution | Angola,Namibia, andBotswana |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primarylanguage families (Khoisan is a term of convenience) |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | kxaa1236 |
 Kx'a languages in orange | |
TheKxʼa (/ˈkɑː/KAH) languages, also calledJu–ǂHoan (/ˌdʒuːˈhoʊæn/joo-HOH-an), is alanguage family established in 2010 linking theǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with theǃKung (Juu) dialect cluster, a relationship that had been suspected for a decade.[1] Along with theTuu languages andKhoe languages, they are one of three language families indigenous to southern Africa, which are typologically similar due toareal effects.
ǂʼAmkoe had previously been lumped in with the Tuu languages, perhaps over confusion with the dialect name ǂHȍȁn, but the only thing they have in common aretypological features such as theirbilabial clicks.
Honken & Heine (2010) coined the termKxʼa for the family as a replacement for the rather inaccessible compoundJu–ǂHoan (easily confused with theJuǀʼhoan language), after the word for 'earth, ground', which is reconstructed as *kxʼà and is shared by the two branches of the family, though also by neighboring languages such asKwadi.[1]
Honken & Heine (2010) reconstruct six places of click articulation for Proto-Kxʼa: the five coronal places that occur in CentralǃKung, plus the bilabial clicks of ǂʼAmkoe. They postulate that the ancestral bilabial clicks became dental in ǃKung.
However,Starostin (2003)[2] argues that the bilabial clicks are a secondary development in ǂʼAmkoe. He cites the ǂʼAmkoe words for 'one' and 'two',/ŋ͡ʘũ/ and/ʘoa/, where no other Khoisan language has a labial consonant of any kind in its words for these numerals.
Sands (2014) notes that ǂʼAmkoe bilabial clicks correspond to all clicks places in ǃKung except for palatal. She postulates that these reflectlabialized clicks in Proto-Kxʼa:*ǀʷ*ǃʷ*‼ʷ*ǁʷ. These became bilabial in ǂʼAmkoe, while the only traces of the labialization in ǃKung are diphthongs. An example, from Proto-Kxʼa *‼ʷ, is 'tail' in ǂHoan/ʘχúì/, Juǀʼhoan/ǃxúi/ and Ekoka/ǁxóe/ (from Proto-Ju *‼xoe: retroflex clicks merged with alveolars in Southern ǃKung, with laterals in Northern ǃKung, and only remained retroflex in Central ǃKung.) The lack of**ǂʷ is not surprising, given the relative rarity of labiovelarized palatals crosslinguistically.[3]