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( Khoisan languages)
The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi and Bushmen (Saan), in east Africa the Sandawe and Hadza. They are famous for their clicks. Many people were exposed to this group of languages through N!xau's language in the 1980 film The Gods Must Be Crazy. Khoisan is the smallest phylum of African languages in Greenberg's classification. However, the relationships among these languages remain a matter of debate among historical linguists, and the term "Khoisan" is often used for convenience without any implication of linguistic validity, much as are "Papuan" and "Australian". It may be that the Tuu and Juu (or Juu-?Hoan) families are similar due to a southern African Sprachbund, whereas the Khoe (or Kwadi-Khoe) family is a more recent migrant to the area, more closely related to Sandawe in East Africa. At best, the branches of Khoisan are extremely distantly related. Prior to the Bantu expansion, it is likely that these languages, or languages like them, were spread throughout southern and eastern Africa. Today they are restricted to the Kalahari Desert, primarily in Namibia and Botswana, and to the Rift Valley in central Tanzania.[1] Most Khoisan languages are endangered, and several are moribund or extinct. Most have no written record. The only widespread Khoisan language is Nama of Namibia, with a quarter of a million speakers; Sandawe in Tanzania is second in number with about 40,000, some monolingual; and the Juu language cluster of the northern Kalahari is spoken by some 30,000 people.
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