Khwe language

Khwe (also rendered Kxoe, Khoe; /ˈkweɪ/ or /ˈkɔɪ/) is a dialect continuum of the Khoe family of Namibia, Angola, Botswana, South Africa, and parts of Zambia, with some 8,000 speakers.

Classification

Khwe is a member of the Khoe language family.

The 2000 meeting of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in South Africa (WIMSA) produced the Penduka Declaration on the Standardisation of Ju and Khoe Languages, which recommends Khwe be classified as part of the Central Khoe-San family, a cluster language comprised of Khwe, ||Ani and Buga.

Khwe is the preferred spelling as recommended by the Penduka Declaration, but the language is also referred to as Kxoe, Khoe-dam and Khwedam. Barakwena, Barakwengo and Mbarakwena refer to speakers of the language and are considered pejorative.

Other names and spellings of ǁAni include ǀAnda, Gǀanda, Handá, Gani, Tanne, and Tsʼéxa with various combinations of -kwe/khwe/khoe and -dam.

History

It is learned locally as a second language in Namibia, but the language is being lost in Botswana as speakers shift to Tswana. Thousands of Kxoe were murdered in Angola after independence, as they had been used by the Portuguese as trackers, and the survivors fled to Zambia. However, some may have returned to Angola more recently.