Taa language

Taa, also known as ǃXóõ (/ˈkoʊ/; also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon) is a Tuu language[1] known for its large number of phonemes, maybe the largest in the world.[2] It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click.[3] Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake). In 2011, there were around 2,500 speakers of Taa.

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Taa". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Rousseau, Bryant (25 November 2016). "Click languages". The New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2022.
  3. ↑ See Sands & Gunnink (2019) "Clicks on the fringes of the Kalahari Basin Area." In Clem et al. (eds), Theory and Description in African Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Language Science Press, Berlin, pp. 703–724.
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