ǀXam language

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Extinct language of South Africa and Lesotho

title: "ǀXam language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["tuu-languages", "languages-of-south-africa", "extinct-languages-of-africa", "karoo", "languages-extinct-in-the-20th-century"] description: "Extinct language of South Africa and Lesotho" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ǀXam_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extinct language of South Africa and Lesotho ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	ǀXam
altname	ǀKham, ǀKhuai
pronunciation
states	South Africa, Lesotho
ethnicity	ǀXam-ka ǃʼē
extinct	1910s
ref
familycolor	Khoisan
fam1	Tuu
fam2	ǃKwi
script	transcribed in Latin script
image	ǂKá̦gára in ǀXam language in W.H.I. Bleek and L. Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman folklore, 1911.png
imagecaption	First line of the ǀXam story "ǂKá̦gára" in W.H.I. Bleek and L. Lloyd, Specimens of Bushman folklore, 1911
iso3	xam
linglist	xam.html
glotto	xamm1241
glottorefname	/Xam
::

ǀXam (pronounced , in English as ) is an extinct language (or possibly cluster of languages) from South Africa formerly spoken by the ǀXam-ka ǃʼē people. It is part of the ǃUi branch of the Tuu languages and closely related to the moribund Nǁng language. Its last speakers died in the 1910s.

Much of the scholarly work on ǀXam was performed by Wilhelm Bleek, a German linguist of the 19th century, who studied a variety of ǀXam spoken at Achterveld, and (with Lucy Lloyd) another spoken at Strandberg and Katkop while working with ǁKabbo, Diaǃkwāin, ǀAǃkúṅta, ǃKweiten-ta-ǁKen, ǀHaṅǂkassʼō and other speakers. The surviving corpus of ǀXam comes from the stories told by and vocabulary recorded from these individuals in the Bleek and Lloyd Collection.

Name

The pipe at the beginning of the name "ǀXam" represents a dental click, like the English interjection tsk, tsk! used to express pity or shame. The denotes a voiceless velar fricative click accompaniment.

Compared to other Khoisan languages, there is little variation in rendering the name, though it is sometimes seen with the simple orthographic variant ǀKham, as well as a different grammatical form, ǀKhuai.

Doculects

Güldemann (2019) lists the following doculects as being well-enough attested to identify as ǀXam.

::data[format=table]

Label	Researcher	Date	Origin	Notes
Nǀuusaa	Krönlein	1850s	Lower Orange River	= D. Bleek label SVIa.
Nǀusa	Lloyd	1880	Middle Orange River
ǀXam	W. Bleek	1866	Achterveld	= Bleek label SI.
ǀXam	W. Bleek/Lloyd	1870s	Karoo (Strandberg-Katkop)	= Bleek label SI.
ǃUi	W. Bleek	1857	Colesberg
ǃUi	W. Bleek	1857	Burghersdorp
ǃUi	Lloyd	1880	Aliwal North
::

Nǀusa is clearly ǀXam, but Güldemann includes the three eastern ǃUi doculects (extending to Lesotho) under the term "Wider ǀXam".

Phonology

Consonants

Compared to other Tuu languages like Taa, ǀXam has a more restricted inventory of consonants particularly the clicks, where there are only 8 series of click accompaniments, far fewer than East ǃXoon Taa's 18. A preliminary consonant inventory of ǀXam, including egressive stops, fricatives, and affricates as well as ingressive clicks, is listed below. ::data[format=table title="Reconstructed ǀXam consonants"]

Egressive	Ingressive	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal	Labial	Dental	Lateral	Alveolar	Palatal	Nasal	plain	Glottalized	Delayed aspiration	Plosive	tenuis	voiced	Affricate	Aspirated	Velar frication	Ejective/Ejective contour	Fricative	Sonorant



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Vowels

The five vowel sounds are noted as and are found with nasalization , pharyngealization , and glottalization .

Speech of mythological characters

Bleek notes that particular animal figures in ǀXam mythology have distinctive speech patterns. For example, Tortoise substitutes clicks with labial non-clicks, Mongoose replaces clicks with ts, tsy, ty, dy etc., and Jackal makes use of a "strange" labial click, "which bears to the ordinary labial click ʘ, a relation in sound similar to that which the palatal click ǂ bears to the cerebral click ǃ". The Moon, and perhaps Hare and Anteater, even use "a most unpronounceable" click in place of all clicks save the bilabial. Other changes noted include the Blue Crane's speech, who ends the first syllable of almost every word with a /t/.

"Fragment about the animal clicks and ways of speaking Bushman"

The jackal has a flat lip click.
A kind of side click in the middle of the mouth. (referring to the jackal?)
The moon has the joint of the tongue being turned up and back to the roof of the mouth. This click has a kind of palatal click with it.
The lion talks with a (?) side click and a (?) guttural with it.
The hyena has a flat click.

Motto of South Africa

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Coat_of_arms_of_South_Africa_(heraldic).svg" caption="The coat of arms of South Africa, with the motto in ǀXam"] ::

ǀXam is used for the South African motto on the coat of arms adopted on 27 April 2000: : ǃke e꞉ ǀxarra ǁke The intended meaning is Diverse people unite or, on a collective scale, Unity in Diversity. The word-for-word translation is people who are different meet. However, it is not known if that phrase would have been idiomatic in ǀXam. Because it is extinct, ǀXam is not one of the twelve official languages of South Africa.

References

Traill, Anthony. (1995). "The complete linguist: papers in memory of Patrick J. Dickens". Rüdiger Köppe.
Güldemann (2011)
Güldemann, Tom. (8 January 2019). "Toward a subclassification of the ǃUi branch of Tuu".
(2013). "The Khoesan Languages". Psychology Press.
Vosseler, Annika. (26 November 2013). "Eine Analyse des Achterveld {{!}}Xam Korpus von W. Bleek, 1866".
Bleek, W. H. I.. (1875). "A brief account of Bushman folklore and other texts". Juta.
(1873-10-15). "A2_1_43_03356.JPG". Center for Curating the Archive, University of South Africa.
Bleek, Dorothea Frances. (1956). "Bushman dictionary". American Oriental Society.
Bleek's ''Bushman Dictionary'' records {{lang. xam. ǃkʼe e꞉ ǀxarra with the meaning {{gloss. strangers.

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