Language name and location: ǂ’Amkhoe (‡Höã), Botswana [Refer to Ethnologue]

语言名称和分布地区: 安科伊语 (胡亚语 / 萨斯语 Sàsí), 博茨瓦纳

1. mʘnú, The bilabial click ([ʘ]) is one of the rarest consonants in the world. As a

     contrastive sound, it is only known to occur in Nǀuu, ǃXóõ and ǂHoan, though it
     also occurred in other now-extinct Tuu languages, such as ǀXam. Bilabial clicks are
     found as allophones of labio-velar stops in some West African languages
     (Ladefoged 1968).

2. ʘkoa

3. qaẽ

4. qàa * (The Shorilatholo consultants also have qàa “four”)

Linguist providing data and dateː Prof. Chris T. Collins, Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, USA, April 13, 2020.

Referenceː 2014. Chris Collins /Jeffrey S. Gruber, A Grammar of ‡Höã, Research on Khoisan Studies, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Köln, Germany. 

提供资料的语言学家: Prof. Chris T. Collins, 2020 年 4 月 13 日.

Other comments: ‡Höã or ǂ’Amkhoe is a (non-central) Khoisan language spoken south of the Khutse game reserve in Botswana. Some of the places where speakers can be found today are (from west to east): Khekhenye, Tshwaane, Dutlwe, Salajwe and Shorilatholo (and nearby cattle posts). It is closely related to Sàsí, whose speakers are found in eastern Botswana in Bodungwane, Dibete, Mokgenene, Poloka and Lethajwe (and nearby cattle posts). We group ‡Höã and Sàsí into a group we call ǂ’Amkhoe (meaning “person” in both languages). In this grammar, we focus on +‡Höã, but we occasionally give comparisons to Sàsí where we have the relevant data. 
There is no exact estimate of the number of fluent speakers of ‡Höã remaining, in part because they are scattered widely over various small villages and cattle posts, in part because there is no definition of what a “fluent speaker” is. In 2011, Chris Collins and Andy Chebanne established that there are at least 10 elderly fluent speakers in Shorilatholo. Similar pockets of speakers exist at other locations. We tentatively put the total number at 50, maybe a few more. The number of Sàsí speakers is similar. There are no young speakers of ‡Höã or Sàsí left at this point of time. Overall, ‡Höã has a very close resemblance to the northern Khoisan languages (e.g., Ju|’hoan, see Traill 1973, 1974; and Westphal 1974). Recently, Heine and Honken (2010) and Honken (2010) have claimed that ‡Höa and the northern Khoisan languages form a group, which they call Kx’a. Therefore, we claim that ǂ’Amkhoe is a branch of Kx’a. Collins and Honken (2012a, 2012b) claim that Kx’a in turn forms a group with !Ui and Taa on the basis of commonalities involving plurality and the linker, which clearly distinguish these languages from the central Khoisan languages.

There are three numerals in Titi’s dialect of ‡Höã : mʘnú  “one”, ʘkoa “two” and qaẽ  “three”. They modify the noun directly, without any intervening relative clause complementizer. The Shorilatholo consultants also have qàa “four”. Sàsí and ‡Höã are mutually intelligible languages. Chris Collins brought a speaker of Sàsí together with speakers of ‡Höã in 1996-1997 and they were able to communicate in their languages, even though they found the differences amusing. However, the Sàsí have no knowledge of the existence of the ‡Höã or vice versa.

‡Höã is a tonal language. Each word must be pronounced with a particular tone: high (v́), mid (v̄), low (v̀), extra low (v̏), low-mid (rising) (v̌) and mid-low (falling) (v̂). Note that the IPA symbol [ʘ] is a bilabial click.