BIGGER PICTURE LINGUISTICS

 

Opposing sound shifts involving alveolar and palatal clicks (! ~ ǂ ) in the !Ui subgroup of TUU languages from southernAfrica

 

 

Menán du Plessis

Independent Researcher. E-mail: Menan.du.Plessis@gmail.com

 

 

In a study based on a limited set of comparative series for Tuu, Güldemann (2005: 23) noted that a (post)alveolar click (!) (hereafter 'alveolar') in │Xam alternates with a palato-alveolar click (+) (hereafter 'palatal') in NIuu and other Tuu varieties.¹ Güldemann postulated a reconstruction for each series where his proto-forms all feature an initial palatal click (+).

The arrays now presented here in Tables 1, 2 and 3² include several more series, as well as comparative data for Khoe. This facilitates a closer study of the ! ~ ≠ alternation, particularly in IXam and NIuu. The brief notes given here will suggest at least three distinct patterns, where one involves a shift from alveolars to palatals (! > ≠), another, the opposing shift, from palatals to alveolars (+ > !), and yet another, an alternation (! ~ ≠) where the direction of shift is indeterminate.

Considering Table 1, it is apparent, firstly, that there is a wholesale pattern of shift, where both ingressive click and egressive ('non-click') initial alveolars in │Xam reflect as palatals in NIuu (t, d, !) > (c, j, +). Secondly, the inclusion of Khoe data³ reveals that a high proportion of the !ui words are adopted. That the direction of borrowing in these cases is from Khoekhoe into !Ui, and that the direction of shift is indeed alveolar > palatal (in NIuu) is suggested by the evidence of other loanwords. One of these is the N│huki name for Tweerivieren ('Two Rivers'), recorded by Ernst Westphal (c. 1953-57)⁴ as ≠Äkhalnou or ≠Ãkhallnou. The equivalent in Namibian Khoekhoe (probably Nama) was recorded by Theophilus Hahn (1879)⁵ as !Äkha≠nous, where läkha is the masculine dual form of lab 'river', making the name incontrovertibly Khoekhoe, since !Ui languages have an entirely different gender system.

Subset 1a consists of a few cases where the pattern does not hold, and where an alveolar click (!) in a word borrowed from Khoekhoe is preserved in both │Xam and N│uu. Subset 1b shows a few cases where no source can be found in KHOE, and where the lexis is potentially original to TUU.

If we now turn to consider Table 2, and look only at the columns for │Xam and Nluu, it might seem that the identical pattern is manifested. But when we take the Khoekhoe data into account, it is clear that a semi-opposing shift is in play. Here, palatals in Khoekhoe as well as Nluu reflect in IXam as alveolars, (≠ > !). The reason for assuming this directionality is that the word for 'springhare' has proved (Vossen 1997: 493) to be reconstructable for Proto-Khoe, as *≠o.

There is again a subset of cases (2a) where the pattern does not hold. For both subsets 1a and 2a, it is possible that these borrowings from Khoekhoe occurred at a different stage, when the sound shifts were not in effect. In this instance there is no subset 2b equivalent to 1b above, which might have indicated potentially original palatal-initial lexis. It transpires that it is difficult to find evidence of any palatal clicks (≠) in │Xam proper - that is, in words not borrowed from Khoe or restricted to Katkop.

Lastly, turning to Table 3, if we again look only at the columns for IXam and Nluu, it might seem that the identical pattern is once more manifested. For these series, though, it has not been possible to find sources in Khoe, which leaves the direction of shift indeterminate, and allows us only to state an alternation (! ~ ≠). These items are possibly original to Tuu.

These opposing sound shifts seem to warrant further investigation, but for such a purpose the comparative series will need expansion. Another factor perhaps deserving attention is the metalinguistic awareness of such sound shifts on the part of speakers themselves. For example, protagonists in IXam folktales were sometimes characterised by a distinctive form of speech involving the alteration of certain sounds (Bleek 1936). Of note here is that IIKabbo⁶ rendered the direct speech of the Mantis by replacing alveolar clicks with palatal ones (! > ≠).⁷

 

Sources of data for the tables (with language names in standard English where possible)

Tuu: │Xam, Katkop: Du Plessis (in preparation); NIuu: Sands and Jones (2022); │Xegwi: Lanham and Hallowes (1956); !Xoon: Traill (1994).

Khoe: Namibian (Nama, Dama, Heillom): Haacke and Eiseb (2002); South African (Kora): Du Plessis (2018); Naro: Visser (2001); Khwe: Kilian-Hatz (2003); Other Kalahari (Shua, Deti): Vossen (1997).

Ntu (or Bantu): Xhosa: McLaren (1963); Sotho: Mabille and Dieterlin (1988).

 

References

Bleek, Dorothea. 1936. Special speech of animals and Moon used by the │Xam Bushmen. Bantu Studies 10: 163-199. https://doi.org/10.1080/02561751.1936.9676028        [ Links ]

Du Plessis, Menán. (In preparation). A toolkit for reading |Xam texts in the original language: a full-length grammar and dictionary, with a selection of glossed texts.

Du Plessis, Menán. 2018. KORA: A lost Khoisan language of the early Cape and the Gariep. Pretoria: Unisa Press, and South African History Online.

Güldemann, Tom. 2005. Studies in Tuu (Southern Khoisan). Leipzig Papers on Africa, 23: 130.         [ Links ]

Haacke, Wilfrid H.G. & Eliphas Eiseb. 2002. A Khoekhoegowab Dictionary, with an English-Khoekhoegowab Index. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan.         [ Links ]

Kilian-Hatz, Christa. 2003. Khwe Dictionary. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.         [ Links ]

Lanham, L.W. & D.P. Hallowes. 1956. An outline of the structure of Eastern Bushman. African Studies 15(3): 98-118. https://doi.org/10.1080/00020185608706989        [ Links ]

Mabille, A. & H. Dieterlen, reclassified, rev. and enlarged R. A. Paroz. 1988. Southern Sotho-English Dictionary. Morija: Morija Sesuto Book Depot.         [ Links ]

McLaren, J. (revised W. G. Bennie & J.J. R. Jolobe). 1963. A New Concise Xhosa-English Dictionary. Cape Town: Longmans.         [ Links ]

Sands, Bonny & Kerry Jones (eds). 2022. N\uuki/Namagowab/Afrikaans/English QuadrilingualDictionary. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media.         [ Links ]

Traill, Anthony. 1994. A IXóö Dictionary. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.         [ Links ]

Visser, Hessel. 2001. Naro Dictionary. Gantsi, Botswana: Naro Language Project.         [ Links ]

Vossen, Rainer. 1997. Die Khoe-Sprachen: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprachgeschichte Afrikas. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.         [ Links ]

 

 

1 Various non-click consonants occur in place of the palatal click (≠) in ||Xegwi. These are not discussed here.
2 Sources of data are listed at the end. Transcription conventions are those of original sources, and may not be accurate. Tone markings are omitted.
3 Comparative items from Khoe languages are supplied only where they are clearly the sources of items borrowed into !ui.
4 See Westphal (n.d.), N|huki pronoun lists and grammatical notes. MS (unpaginated) housed in the Westphal Collection of the University of Cape Town Libraries Special Collections, and available at https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/islandora/obiect/islandora%3A7658
5 See Hahn (1879), Original Map of Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, 4 sheet. Drawing housed in the African Maps Collection of the university of Cape Town Libraries Special Collections, and available at https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/collection/islandora-29968
6 This name, really better spelled as ||Kabo, was the Khoekhoe name (meaning 'dream') of the |Xam speaker known in his own language as Kx'anisõ, and in Colonial Dutch as Jantjie Tooren.
7 See comment by Lucy Lloyd on the reverse of p. 2293 in Wilhelm Bleek's MS notebook 24, available online at http ://lloydbleekcollection. cs.uct.ac.za/