Nama language Totally Explained

Everything about Nama Language totally explained

Nama, also known as Khoekhoe or Khoekhoegowab, previously called Hottentot, is the most populous and widespread of the Khoisan languages. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa by the Nama, Damara, and Haiǁom. The name for Nama speakers, Khoekhoen, is from the Nama word khoe "person", with reduplication and the suffix -n to indicate the plural. According to Ethnologue, there were 250,000 speakers in the 1990s.
Nama is a national language in Namibia. In Namibia and South Africa, radio programs are broadcast in Nama.

Classification

Nama is a Khoe language, which is part of a hypothetical Khoisan phylum, it belongs to the northern branch of the Khoekhoe subbranch of the family (together with now extinct Eini).

Geographic distribution

Nama has 250,000 speakers in Namibia, South Africa, and (a few in) Botswana.

Dialects

Phonology

Vowels

There are 5 vowel qualities, found as oral /i e a o u/ and nasal /ĩ ã ũ/. These may be long or short, and there are several sequences or diphthongs: oral [əiae əu ao ui oa oe] and nasal [ə͠ıə͠u u͠ı o͠a]. ([ə] is phonemically /a/.)

Tones

Nama has three tones, /á, ā, à/, which may occur on vowels and nasal stops. The mid tone isn't written.

Consonants

Nama has 31 consonants: 20 clicks and a simple set of 11 non-clicks.

Non-clicks

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p ~ β	t ~ ɾ	k kʰ	ʔ
Affricate		ʦ
Fricative		s	x	h
Nasal	m	n

Between vowels, /p/ is pronounced [β] and /t/ is pronounced [ɾ].

Clicks

The clicks are doubly articulated consonants. Each click consists of one of four primary articulations or "influxes" and one of five secondary articulation or "effluxes". The combination of influxes and effluxes results in 20 phonemes.
   The aspirated clicks are often pronounced as affricates. That is, /kǃˣ/ may be pronounced anywhere from [kǃʰ] to [kǃx].
   The voiceless nasal accompaniment is difficult to hear when not between vowels, so to foreign ears it may sound like a longer but less raspy version of the aspirated accompaniment.
   There have been several orthographies used for Nama, with sometimes conflicting differences in the representation of the clicks. In A Khoekhoegowab dictionary (Haacke 2000) the standardized version of Nama orthography has been used.

accompaniment	affricated clicks		'sharp' clicks		standardized orthography (with "ǃ")
accompaniment	dental clicks	lateral clicks	alveolar clicks	palatal clicks	standardized orthography (with "ǃ")
Tenuis	kǀ	kǁ	kǃ	kǂ	<ǃg>
Aspirated	kǀˣ	kǁˣ	kǃˣ	kǂˣ	<ǃkh>
Nasal	ŋǀ	ŋǁ	ŋǃ	ŋǂ	<ǃn>
Voiceless nasal with delayed aspiration	ŋ̊ǀʰ	ŋ̊ǁʰ	ŋ̊ǃʰ	ŋ̊ǂʰ	<ǃh>
Tenuis with glottal stop	kǀʔ	kǁʔ	kǃʔ	kǂʔ	<ǃ>

Grammar

Nama has a Subject Object Verb word order.

Sample text

Xam-i ke ʼa ǀúrún hòán tì kàóʼao káísep ʼa ǀaísa, ǀóm ǁxáí, xápú kxáó, tsií ǃháése ra ǃxóés ǃʼáróma.
Tsií maátsekám ǁóakas hòásàp ke ǂxam xam-à ǃárop ǃnaa ǂʼoá tsií ǁʼiip tì ǀaísìpà síí kèrè ǀnoóku náú ǀúrún ǀxáa. Tsií maá tsèes hòásàp ke ǁʼiipà kèrè ʼóa-ǀxií tànʼaose. Tsií nee ǂhòas ke ǀúrún ǃhúùp hòárákap ǃnaa kè ǁnàúhè tsií ǂʼánhè ʼií xam-i ʼa ǀúrún tì kàóʼao ǃxáisà. Tsií maá tsèes hííʼap kèrè ʼóa-ǀxií tàn tsiís kxáóǃáa ʼoos ke ǁʼiip tì ǁuusà kèrè koápi "tíí ʼóátse! ǀóm ǃnórótse! xápú kxáótse! ǀóm ǁxáítse! ʼáore kxòetse!" tí.
Xapes ke ǀúí tsekám ǁóaka kxàí-máá tsiíp ke ǂxam xam-à kàrósn ʼoo ǃxóóǀxáapi "ǀóm ǁxáítseǃ ǀóm ǃnórótse! xam ǁ’oatseǃ xápú kxáótseǃ" tí, !xóóǀxáapi tóá tsií kè míí "amʼaseta ke ra ǂóm saáts maá ǀúrún hòán xaa ʼa ǀaísa ǃxáisà. Maá tsèes hòásàts ke saátsà ǂʼoá ǃárop ǃnaa tsií ʼóa-ǀxií tsií ra ǁaute ʼamʼasets saátsà ʼa ǀúrún tì kàó’ao ǃxáisà. Xape, tíí ʼóátseǃ ǀúí tsèets ke nìí ǂʼoá ǃárop ǃnaa. Tsií ǂʼoá tsiíts ǃárop ǃnaa ra ǃuumaa hííʼats ke ǂxarí xuuróp ǂhanúse ra ǃúu ǃxoótì ǃnaa ǂnùa tànásepà nìí mùu. Tsií, tíí ʼóátseǃ ǀóm ǁxáítseǃ ǀóm ǃnórótseǃ xápú kxáótseǃ ǁnaá ǂxarí xuuróp ǀxáats kàrà ǀhaóʼú tsèes ǁnaás ʼáís ke sóresà nìí ǂaa ʼóa-ǀxií tamats hàa hííʼa. ǁnaá xuuróp tì ǀʼòns ke "kxòep" tí ra ǂaíhè.

English Translation

The lion is king of all the beasts because he's very strong, thick of chest, slim of waist, and runs fast. Every morning, the young lion would go out into the forest and compare his strength with the other beasts. And every day he'd return the victor. This news was heard and known throughout the animal world: that the lion was king of the beasts. Every day that he'd return victorious, his mother would praise him, "Son of mine! Thick of neck! Slim of waist! Thick of chest! He-man!" But one morning, when having got up the young lion was stretching, she praised him, "Thick of chest! Thick of neck! Lion-armed! Slim of waist!," finished praising him and said, "I truly believe that you're strongest of all the beasts. Every day you go out into the forest and return, and show me that you're truly king of the beasts. But, my son, one day you'll go out into the forest. And while you're out walking around in the forest, you'll see a little thing which walks straight, its head sitting on its shoulders. And, Son of mine! Thick of chest! Thick of neck! Slim of waist!, the day you meet that little thing, on that day the sun will set while you've not returned. The name of that little thing is called 'man'.

Bibliography

Beach, Douglas M. 1938. The phonetics of the Hottentot language. Cambridge: Heffer.

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1976. A Nama grammar: the noun-phrase. MA thesis. University of Cape Town.

Haacke, Wilfrid H. G. 1977. The so-called "personal pronoun" in Nama. In Traill, Anthony, ed., Khoisan linguistic studies 3, 43-62. Communications 6. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1978. Subject deposition in Nama. MA thesis. University of Essex. Colchester (UK).

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. Compound noun phrases in Nama. In Derek F. Gowlett, ed., African linguistic contributions (Festschrift Ernst Westphal), 189-194. Pretoria: Via Afrika.

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. Dislocated noun phrases in Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara): further evidence for the sentential hypothesis. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere, 29, 149-162.

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1995. Instances of incorporation and compounding in Khoekhoegowab (Nama/Damara). In Anthony Traill, Rainer Vossen and Marguerite Anne Megan Biesele, eds., The complete linguist: papers in memory of Patrick J. Dickens, 339-361. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Haacke, Wilfrid, Eliphas Eiseb and Levi Namaseb. 1997. Internal and external relations of Khoekhoe dialects: a preliminary survey. In Wilfrid Haacke & Edward D. Elderkin, eds., Namibian languages: reports and papers, 125-209. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag for the University of Namibia.

Haacke, Wilfrid. 1999. The tonology of Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara). Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung/Research in Khoisan studies, Bd 16. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Haacke, Wilfrid H.G. & Eiseb, Eliphas (2002) A Khoekhoegowab dictionary with an English-Khoekhoegowab index. Windhoek : Gamsberg Macmillan. ISBN 99916-0-401-4

Hagman, Roy S. 1977. Nama Hottentot grammar. Language science monographs, v 15. Bloomington: Indiana University.

Hahn, Theophilus. 1870. Die Sprache der Nama, nebst einem Anhang enthaltend Sprachproben aus dem Munde des Volkes. Redigierte Ausgabe eine Dissertation mit einem Anhang über Mythen der Khoi-khoin nebst Übersetzung und Wörterverzeichnis. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth.Further Information

Get more info on 'Nama Language'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://nama_language.totallyexplained.com">Nama language Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.