| ǀXam | |
| Extinct: | 1910s |
| Familycolor: | Khoisan |
| Fam1: | Tuu |
| Fam2: | ǃKwi |
| Iso3: | xam |
| Linglist: | xam.html |
| Glotto: | xamm1241 |
| Glottorefname: | /Xam |
| States: | South Africa, Lesotho |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /xam/ |
| Ethnicity: | ǀXam-ka ǃʼē |
| Script: | transcribed in Latin script |
| Also Known As: | ǀKham, ǀKhuai |
ǀXam (pronounced pronounced as /ǀ͡xam/, 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. 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.[1] The surviving corpus of ǀXam comes from the stories told by and vocabulary recorded from these individuals in the Bleek and Lloyd Collection.
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 (x) 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.
Güldemann (2019) lists the following doculects as being well-enough attested to identify as ǀXam.[2]
| 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".[2]
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.[3] A preliminary consonant inventory of ǀXam, including egressive stops, fricatives, and affricates as well as ingressive clicks, is listed below.
| Egressive | Ingressive | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | Labial | Dental | Lateral | Alveolar | Palatal | |||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Glottalized | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Delayed aspiration | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Plosive | tenuis | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Affricate | Aspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Velar frication | pronounced as /tx/~pronounced as /t͡sx/ | pronounced as /ʘ͡kx/ | pronounced as /ǀ͡kx/ | pronounced as /ǁ͡kx/ | pronounced as /ǃ͡kx/ | pronounced as /ǂ͡kx/ | |||||
| Ejective/Ejective contour | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Sonorant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
The five vowel sounds are noted as pronounced as /[i e a o u]/ and are found with nasalization pronounced as /[ĩ ẽ ã õ ũ]/, pharyngealization pronounced as /[ḭ ḛ a̰ o̰ ṵ]/, and glottalization pronounced as /[iˀ eˀ aˀ oˀ uˀ]/.[4]
See also: ǀKaggen and ǂKá̦gára. 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/.[5]
ǀXam is used for the South African motto on the coat of arms adopted on 27 April 2000:
ǃke e꞉ ǀxarra ǁkeThe 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.[7] However, it is not known if that phrase would have been idiomatic in ǀXam.[8] Because it is extinct, ǀXam is not one of the twelve official languages of South Africa. Its last speakers died in the 1910s.[9]