Bushman Languages
Bushman languages, spoken by the San people of Southern Africa, are a unique group of endangered languages noted for their distinctive click sounds. The San, often referred to as the First People of Africa, have inhabited the Kalahari Desert for over twenty thousand years, maintaining a hunter-gatherer lifestyle until the arrival of European settlers in the seventeenth century. This contact led to significant changes in their way of life and language, with many San speakers adopting European words and influences, particularly from Afrikaans. The languages themselves are characterized by a series of clicks, which are integral to their phonetics and can convey different meanings depending on their use.
The San languages include around thirty dialects, such as those of the !Kung, Bugakhwe, and !Xun tribes. Despite their rich linguistic heritage, the number of fluent speakers has dwindled to approximately sixteen thousand by the twenty-first century. The San languages have also absorbed terms from modern technology, reflecting the shifts in culture and lifestyle. Efforts to recover and preserve these languages, alongside the San culture, have gained momentum since the 1990s, highlighting the importance of safeguarding this ancient linguistic tradition.
Bushman Languages
The Bushman languages are an endangered collection of languages known for their distinctive "click" sounds. They are used by former hunter-gatherer people known as the San of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. The San people have no collective name for themselves. The term "Bushman" was given to them by European settlers and is considered pejorative. Their language is sometimes considered a subset of the Khoisan languages. The term Khoisan refers to a combination of the Khoikhoi and San peoples. However, some of the people included in this broader classification were not hunter-gatherers and their language is not classified as a San language.
The San are considered the First People of Africa and are believed to have been living in southern Africa for more than twenty thousand years. Their way of life changed very little until the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century, which forced many of them to migrate and disperse. Contact with the Europeans also affected their language, which was infused with European words and diluted by the Dutch-influenced Afrikaans language, reducing the number of people who spoke San.
European anthropologists first used the term San based on the name neighboring people were using for them—"san" was an insulting term in the native language referring to people who lived in the bush country and ate food gathered from the land.
History and Classification
The most distinguishing characteristic of a San language is the series of clicks that are used with more common type of vocalizations to convey different meanings. These clicks are made by placing the tongue in various portions of the mouth. Placing the tongue against the back of the front teeth, against the roof of the mouth, or against the back of the front gums—as in making the sound of a popping cork—generates some of the clicking sounds used in the language. Sounds made by sucking in air are also part of the language.
Just as different pronunciations affect the meaning of words in other languages, the clicks in a San language also affect the word's meaning. The sounds can seem very similar to outsiders, with only subtle differences between one distinct click and another. The words can also be very short and the native San speak quickly. As a result, San is usually a very difficult language for nonnatives to understand and speak.
The sounds have been incorporated into the written alphabet for the San as well. For example, forward slashes (/), the "not equal" sign (≠), two lateral slashes (//), and the exclamation point (!) represent unique clicks and sounds in written form. The written language has also been subject to outside influences. When European and other researchers lived with and studied the San, they sometimes used Anglo phonetical spelling for words they heard them speak. In some cases, these alternate spellings were adopted. For instance, some words that would be spelled zhu in San were rendered with a j instead, and that spelling has persisted.
Another feature of the San language is that, unlike most European and Aryan tongues, it is grammatically genderless. Since their language is ancient and the San are considered to be descendants of earliest man, some researchers believe this offers an insight into how language developed and indicates most languages were originally genderless.
As in many other languages, San languages have a variety of dialects among the various tribes composing the San. Groups such as the !Kung, Bugakhwe, the Hallom, Kua, Naro, Anikhwe, and the !Xun each have its own version of the native tongue. About thirty different dialects are still spoken.
To facilitate trade and other interactions, many people who speak San also speak a common Afrikaans language. Because the language lacks words for modern concepts such as computers, cars, and other technology, the terms used for these objects in European and other cultures have been absorbed into the San language.
Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage
The San have traditionally lived in Southern Africa's Kalahari Desert, in the nations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Angola. Smaller groups also reside in Tanzania. Historical and archaeological evidence has suggested they also lived at one time in Lesotho, Mozambique, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The twentieth century was difficult for the San. War waged by outside powers and the eviction from their ancestral land decimated their population and culture. Many who were forced to move were scattered and often mixed with other tribal populations. Frequent migration and the increasing need to use the common Afrikaans language weakened the San’s centuries-old oral tradition. By the twenty-first century, only about sixteen thousand people speak San, and the language they use is not linguistically pure San.
In the 1990s, the San were able to reacquire some of their land and gain restitution for some of the losses they had suffered. A few remaining speakers of their ancient native tongue were identified and efforts began to recover and preserve their language and culture.
Bibliography
Higgins, Carolynne. "The Ancient Dialect of the San People." Africa Geographic. Africa Geographic, 25 Aug 2013. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. <http://africageographic.com/blog/the-ancient-dialect-of-the-san-people/>.
"Kalahari Bushmen." The Kalahari Meerkat Project. The Kalahari Meerkat Project, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. <http://www.kalahari-meerkats.com/fileadmin/files/guides/Bushmen‗light.pdf>.
Mesthrie, Rajend. Language in South Africa. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002, 36–44. Print.
Moran, Shane. Representing Bushmen: South Africa and the Origins of Language. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2009. Print.
Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Old Way: A Story of the First People. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006. Print.
"Written in the Sand: A History of the San Peoples of South Africa." San. South African San Institute, 2015. Web. 19 Sept. 2015. <http://www.san.org.za/history.php>.