The Khoekhoe /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ KOY-koy language (Khoekhoegowab), also known by the ethnic terms Nama (Namagowab) /ˈnɑːmə/ NAH-mə,^[3] Damara (ǂNūkhoegowab), or Nama/Damara^[4][5] and formerly as Hottentot,^{[lower-alpha 2]} is the most widespread of the non-Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use of click consonants and therefore were formerly classified as Khoisan, a grouping now recognized as obsolete. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa primarily by three ethnic groups: Namakhoen, ǂNūkhoen, and Haiǁomkhoen.

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Khoekhoe
Nama/Damara
Khoekhoegowab
Native to	Namibia, Botswana and South Africa
Region	Orange River, Great Namaland, Damaraland
Ethnicity	Khoikhoi, Nama, Damara, Haiǁom, ǂKhomani
Native speakers	200,000 ± 10,000 (2011)[1]
Language family	Khoe–Kwadi Khoe Khoekhoe Khoekhoe
Dialects	Nama–Damara Haiǁom–ǂĀkhoe
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Namibia  South Africa[lower-alpha 1][2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: naq – Khoekhoe, Nama hgm – Haiǁom
Glottolog	nort3245  Subfamily: North Khoekhoe nama1264  Language: Nama haio1238  Language: Haiǁom-Akhoe
ELP	Khoekhoe
The distribution of the Nama language in Namibia
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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The Haiǁom, who had spoken a Juu language, later shifted to Khoekhoe. The name for the speakers, Khoekhoen, is from the word khoe "person", with reduplication and the suffix -n to indicate the general plural. Georg Friedrich Wreede was the first European to study the language, after arriving in ǁHui!gaeb (later Cape Town) in 1659. ^{[citation needed]}

Khoekhoe is a national language in Namibia. In Namibia and South Africa, state-owned broadcasting corporations produce and broadcast radio programmes in Khoekhoe.

It is estimated that only around 167,000 speakers of Khoekhoe remain in Africa, which makes it an endangered language. In 2019, the University of Cape Town ran a series of short courses teaching the language, and 21 September 2020 launched its new Khoi and San Centre. An undergraduate degree programme is being planned to be rolled out in coming years.^[7]

Modern scholars generally see three dialects:

• Nama–Damara, incl. Sesfontein Damara
• Haiǁom
• ǂĀkhoe, itself a dialect cluster, and intermediate between Haiǁom and the Kalahari Khoe languages

They are distinct enough that they might be considered two or three distinct languages.^{[citation needed]}

• Eini (extinct) is also close but is now generally counted as a distinct language.^{[citation needed]}

There have been several orthographies used for Nama. A Khoekhoegowab dictionary (Haacke 2000) uses the modern standard.

In standard orthography, the consonants b d g are used for words with one of the lower tone melodies and p t k for one of the higher tone melodies; they are otherwise pronounced the same. W is only used between vowels, though it may be replaced with b or p according to tone. Overt tone marking is otherwise generally omitted.

Nasal vowels are written with a circumflex. All nasal vowels are long, as in hû /hũ̀ṹ/ 'seven'. Long (double) vowels are otherwise written with a macron, as in ā /ʔàa̋/ 'to cry, weep'; these constitute two moras (two tone-bearing units).

A glottal stop is not written at the beginning of a word (where it is predictable), but it is transcribed with a hyphen in compound words, such as gao-aob /kȁòʔòȁp/ 'chief'.

The clicks are written using the IPA symbols:

• ǀ (a vertical bar) for a dental click
• ǁ (a double vertical bar) for a lateral click
• ǃ (a bar with an under-dot, approximately an exclamation mark) for an alveolar click
• ǂ (a bar with a double cross stroke) for a palatal click

Sometimes other characters are substituted, e.g. the hash (#) in place of ǂ.^[15]

Nama has a subject–object–verb word order, three nouns classes (masculine/gu-class, feminine/di-class and neuter/n-class) and three grammatical numbers (singular, dual and plural). Pronominal enclitics are used to mark person, gender, and number on the noun phrases.

Following is a sample text in the Khoekhoe language.^[18]

Nē ǀkharib ǃnâ da ge ǁGûn tsî ǀGaen tsî doan tsîn; tsî ǀNopodi tsî ǀKhenadi tsî ǀhuigu tsî ǀAmin tsîn; tsî ǀkharagagu ǀaon tsîna ra hō.

In this region, we find springbuck, oryx, and duiker; francolin, guinea fowl, bustard, and ostrich; and also various kinds of snake.

• ǃGâi tsēs – Good day
• ǃGâi ǁgoas – Good morning
• ǃGâi ǃoes – Good evening
• Matisa – How are you?
• ǃGâise ǃgû re – Goodbye
• ǁKhawa mûgus – See you soon
• Regkomtani – I'll manage
• Tae na Tae – How's it hanging (direct translation "What is what")

• Khoekhoegowab/English for Children, Éditions du Cygne, 2013, ISBN 978-2-84924-309-1
• Beach, Douglas M. 1938. The Phonetics of the Hottentot Language. Cambridge: Heffer.
• Brugman, Johanna. 2009. Segments, Tones and Distribution in Khoekhoe Prosody. PhD Thesis, Cornell University.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1976. A Nama Grammar: The Noun-phrase. MA thesis. Cape Town: University of Cape Town.
• Haacke, Wilfrid H. G. 1977. "The So-called "Personal Pronoun" in Nama." In Traill, Anthony, ed., Khoisan Linguistic Studies 3, 43–62. Communications 6. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1978. Subject Deposition in Nama. MA thesis. Colchester, UK: University of Essex.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. "Compound Noun Phrases in Nama". In Gowlett, Derek F., ed., African Linguistic Contributions (Festschrift Ernst Westphal), 189–194. Pretoria: Via Afrika.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1992. "Dislocated Noun Phrases in Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara): Further Evidence for the Sentential Hypothesis". Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere, 29, 149–162.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1995. "Instances of Incorporation and Compounding in Khoekhoegowab (Nama/Damara)". In Anthony Traill, Rainer Vossen and Marguerite Anne Megan Biesele, eds., The Complete Linguist: Papers in Memory of Patrick J. Dickens", 339–361. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
• Haacke, Wilfrid; Eiseb, Eliphas and Namaseb, Levi. 1997. "Internal and External Relations of Khoekhoe Dialects: A Preliminary Survey". In Wilfrid Haacke & Edward D. Elderkin, eds., Namibian Languages: Reports and Papers, 125–209. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag for the University of Namibia.
• Haacke, Wilfrid. 1999. The Tonology of Khoekhoe (Nama/Damara). Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung/Research in Khoisan Studies, Bd 16. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
• Haacke, Wilfrid H.G. & Eiseb, Eliphas. 2002. A Khoekhoegowab Dictionary with an English-Khoekhoegowab Index. Windhoek : Gamsberg Macmillan. ISBN 99916-0-401-4
• Hagman, Roy S. 1977. Nama Hottentot Grammar. Language Science Monographs, v 15. Bloomington: Indiana University.
• Krönlein, Johann Georg. 1889. Wortschatz der Khoi-Khoin (Namaqua-Hottentotten). Berlin : Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.
• Olpp, Johannes. 1977. Nama-grammatika. Windhoek : Inboorlingtaalburo van die Departement van Bantoe-onderwys.
• Rust, Friedrich. 1965. Praktische Namagrammatik. Cape Town : Balkema.
• Vossen, Rainer. 2013. The Khoesan Languages. Oxon: Routledge.