Cover not available
Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 39:3 (2022) ► pp.311–368

The early history of clicks in Nguni

ORCID logo | Ghent University

Language contact between migrating Bantu speakers and resident Khoisan speakers has resulted in the adoption of clicks in various southern African Bantu languages. This paper uses the comparative method to show that for one particular cluster of Bantu click languages, the Nguni languages, a large number of phonemic clicks can be reconstructed to its putative ancestor Proto-Nguni, including a palatal click rarely found in Bantu languages and no longer used as such in any living Nguni language. Although clicks have undergone subsequent developments in individual Nguni languages, no new click phonemes were acquired through language contact, showing that clicks were already present very early in the history of the Nguni languages. This relative chronology provides new insights into how the relations between Bantu- and Khoisan-speaking communities in southern Africa developed over time.

Keywords: language contact, Bantu, Khoisan, reconstruction, comparative method, clicks
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The classification of the Nguni languages
  • 3.Click phonemes in Nguni languages
  • 4.Reconstructing Proto-Nguni clicks
    • 4.1Methodology
    • 4.2The click inventory of Proto-Nguni
    • 4.3Prenasalized clicks
  • 5.Apparently irregular correspondences
    • 5.1Irregular correspondence due to recent borrowing
    • 5.2Irregular correspondence due to recent click insertion
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.19061.gun
References
Alexander, Neville
1998 The political economy of the harmonisation of the Nguni and the Sotho languages. Lexikos 81. 269–275.Google Scholar
Andrason, Alexander
2017 The “exotic” nature of ideophones – from Khoekhoe to Xhosa. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 481. 139–150.Google Scholar
Bastin, Yvonne, André Coupez, Evariste Mumba & Thilo C. Schadeberg
(eds.) 2002 Bantu Lexical Reconstructions 3. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa, online database: [URL]. Last accessed: 31-10-2019.
Baumbach, E. J. M.
1987 Analytical Tsonga grammar. Pretoria: University of South Africa.Google Scholar
Bennett, Wm. G.
2020 Click phonology. In Bonny Sands (ed.), Click Consonants, 74–128. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bill, Mary C.
1974 The influence of the Hottentot languages on the Bantu languages. Limi 21. 63–77.Google Scholar
Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie
2018 Linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of variation in the Eastern Cape: Complexities of Xhosa language use. Studia Orientalia Electronica 61. 90–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bostoen, Koen
2018 The Bantu Expansion. In Mily Crevels & Pieter Muysken (eds.), Oxford research encyclopedia of African history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourquin, W.
1951 Click-words which Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho have in common. African Studies 101. 59–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowern, Claire & Victoria Lotridge
2002 Ndebele. München: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Boyce, William B. & William J. Davis
1844 A grammar of the Kaffir language. London: Wesleyan Missionary Society.Google Scholar
Cassimjee, Farida & Charles W. Kisseberth
1992 The tonology of depressor consonants: Evidence from Mijikenda and Nguni. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 181. 26–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davey, Anthony S.
1981 Aspects of the tonology of Siswati. PhD dissertation University of South Africa (UNISA).
de Filippo, Cesare, Koen Bostoen, Mark Stoneking & Brigitte Pakendorf
2012 Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences 2791. 3526–3263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doke, Clement M.
1947 Textbook of Zulu grammar. London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Doke, C. M.
1954 The Southern Bantu languages. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Doke, C. M., D. M. Malcolm, J. M. A. Sikakana & B. W. Vilakazi
1990 English – Zulu, Zulu – English dictionary. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Doke, C. M. & S. M. Mofokeng
1957 Textbook of Southern Sotho grammar. Cape Town: Longmans.Google Scholar
Donnelly, Simon
1999 Southern Tekela Nguni is alive: Reintroducing the Phuthi language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1361. 97–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Aspects of tone and voice in Phuthi. PhD dissertation, University of Illinois.
Downing, Laura J.
2009 On pitch lowering not linked to voicing: Nguni and Shona group depressors. Language Sciences 311. 179–198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Grounding Nguni depressor effects. In Wolfgang Kehrein, Björn Köhnlein, Paul Boersma & Marc van Oostendorp (eds.), Segmental structure and tone, 108–146. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
du Plessis, Menán
2018 Kora: A lost Khoisan language of the early Cape and the Gariep. UNISA: University of South Africa & SAHO.Google Scholar
Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons & Charles D. Fennig
2019 Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version.Google Scholar
Faye, C. U.
1925 The influence of “Hlonipha” on the Zulu clicks. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 31. 757–782. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Finlayson, Rosalie
1982 Hlonipha – the women’s language of avoidance among the Xhosa. South African Journal of African Languages 21. 35–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1987 Southern-Bantu origins. South African Journal of African Languages 71. 50–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fulop, Sean A., Peter Ladefoged, Fang Liu & Rainer Vossen
2003 Yeyi clicks: Acoustic description and analysis. Phonetica 601. 231–260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grollemund, Rebecca, Simon Branford, Koen Bostoen, Andrew Meade, Chris Venditti & Mark Pagel
2015 Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1121. 13296–13301. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H.
1963 The languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University.Google Scholar
Güldemann, Tom
2008 A linguist’s view: Khoe-Kwadi speakers as the earliest food-producers of southern Africa. Southern African Humanities 201. 93–132.Google Scholar
2014 ‘Khoisan’ linguistic classification today. In Tom Güldemann & Anne-Maria Fehn (eds.), Beyond ‘Khoisan’: Historical relations in the Kalahari Basin, 1–40. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Güldemann, Tom & Anne-Maria Fehn
2017 The Kalahari Basin Area as a ‘Sprachbund’ before the Bantu Expansion. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics, 500–526. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Güldemann, Tom & Mark Stoneking
2008 A historical appraisal of clicks: A linguistic and genetic population perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 371. 93–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gumbi, Nompumelelo Zamile
2005 The Ingwavuma dialect of isiZulu with special reference to Kwanyawo, Kwamngomezulu and Kwamathenjwa areas. MA Thesis, University of Zululand, Kwadlangezwa.
Gunnink, Hilde
2014 The grammatical structure of Sowetan tsotsitaal. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 321. 161–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gunnink, Hilde, Bonny Sands, Brigitte Pakendorf & Koen Bostoen
2015 Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 361. 193–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, Malcolm
1948 The classification of the Bantu languages. London: Published for the International African Institute by the Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haacke, Wilfrid H. G. & Eliphas Eiseb
2002 A Khoekhoegowab dictionary. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan Publishers.Google Scholar
Hall, Simon
2009 Farming communities of the second millennium: Internal frontiers, identity, continuity and change. In Bernard K. Mbenga, Carolyn Hamilton & Robert Ross (eds.), The Cambridge history of South Africa: Volume 1: From early times to 1885, 112–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hallowes, Desmond Philip
1942 A grammar of Baca and its relation to Swazi, Zulu and Xhosa. MA Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand.
Harinck, Gerrit
1969 Interaction between Xhosa and Khoi: Emphasis on the period 1620–1750. In Leonard M. Thompson (ed.), African societies in Southern Africa, 145–170. London, Ibadan and Nairobi: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Herbert, Robert K.
1990 The sociohistory of clicks in Bantu. Anthropological Linguistics 321. 295–315.Google Scholar
Herbert, Robert K. & Richard Bailey
2002 The Bantu languages: Sociohistorical perspectives. In Raj Mesthrie (ed.), Language in South Africa, 50–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Honken, Henry
2013 Genetic relationships: An overview of the evidence. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), The Khoesan Languages, 13–24. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huffman, Thomas N.
2004 The archaeology of the Nguni past. Southern African Humanities 161. 79–111.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal
2000 Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Iziko Lesihlathululi-Mezwi Sesindebele
2006 isiNdebele-English/English-isiNdebele isiHlathululi-mezwi/Bilingual and explanatory dictionary. Cape Town: Phumelela.Google Scholar
Jallow, Isalee, Maikki Järvi, Niina Väisänen & Mimi Nokuthula Masango
2019 Language dynamics among speakers of Sindebele. Studio Orientalia 1201. 63–89.Google Scholar
Janson, Tore
1991/1992 Southern Bantu and Makua. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 12/131. 63–106.Google Scholar
Jessen, Michael & Justus C. Roux
2002 Voice quality differences associated with stops and clicks in Xhosa. Jounal of Phonetics 301. 1–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jolly, Pieter
1996 Interaction between South-Eastern San and Southern Nguni and Sotho communities c. 1400 to c. 1880. South African Historical Journal 351. 30–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jordan, A. C.
1953 Some features of the phonetic and grammatical structure of Baca. MA Thesis, University of Cape Town, Cape Town.
Kubeka, Fred Isaac Sibusiso
1979 Zulu dialects in Natal and Zululand. MA Thesis, University of Natal, Durban.
Ladefoged, Peter & Anthony Traill
1994 Clicks and their accompaniments. Journal of Phonetics 221. 33–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lanham, L. W.
1964 The proliferation and extension of Bantu phonemic systems influenced by Bushman and Hottentot. In H. G. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, 382–391. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Lanham, L. W. & D. P. Hallowes
1956 An outline of the structure of eastern Bushman. African Studies 151. 97–118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Letele, G. L.
1945 A preliminary study of the lexicological influence of the Nguni languages on Southern Sotho (Communications from the School of African Studies). Cape Town: Cape Town University.Google Scholar
Louw, J. A.
1974 The influence of Khoe on the Xhosa language. Limi 21. 45–62.Google Scholar
1976 The influence of Khoi on Xhosa morphology. In W. J. de Klerk & F. A. Ponelis (eds.), Gedenkbundel H.J.J.M. van der Merwe, 87–95. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
1977a Clicks as loans in Xhosa. In J. W. Snyman (ed.), Bushmen and Hottentot linguistic studies 1975, 82–100. Pretoria: UNISA.Google Scholar
1977b The linguistic prehistory of the Xhosa. In W. J. G. Möhlig, F. Rottland & B. Heine (eds.), Zur Sprachgeschichte und Ethnohistorie in Afrika, 127–151. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.Google Scholar
1979 A preliminary survey of Khoi and San influence in Zulu. In A. Traill (ed.), Khoisan Linguistic Studies, 8–21. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
1986 Some linguistic influence of Khoi and San in the prehistory of the Nguni. In Rainer Vossen & Klaus Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary studies on Khoisan 2. 141–169. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
2013 The impact of Khoesan on Southern Bantu. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), The Khoesan languages, 435–444. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Louw, J. A. & Rosalie Finlayson
1990 Southern Bantu origins as represented by Xhosa and Tswana. South African Journal of African Languages 101. 401–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maho, J. F.
2009 NUGL Online: The online version of the New Updated Guthrie List, a referential classification of the Bantu Languages (4 June 2009). (Online file: [URL]. Last accessed: 31-10-2019).
Marks, Sarah J., Francesco Montinaro, Hila Levy, Francesca Brisighelli, Gianmarco Ferri, Stefania Bertoncini, Chiara Batini, George B. J. Busby, Charles Arthur, Peter Mitchell, Brian A. Stewart, Ockie Oosthuizen, Erica Oosthuizen, Maria Eugenia D’Amato, Sean Davison, Vincenzo Pascali & Cristian Capelli
2015 Static and moving frontiers: the genetic landscape of Southern African Bantu-speaking populations. Molecular Biology and Evolution 321. 29–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazel, Aron David
1989 People making history: The last ten thousand years of hunter-gatherer communities in the Thukela Basin. Natal Museum Journal of Humanities 11. 1–168.Google Scholar
McLaren, James
1948 A Xhosa grammar: Revised and re-written in the new orthography. London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Meinhof, Carl
1928/1929 Versuch einer grammatischen Skizze einer Buschmannsprache. Zeitschrift für Eingeborenensprache XIX1. 161–189.Google Scholar
Miller, Amanda
2011 The representation of clicks. In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin Ewen, Elizabeth Hume & Keren Rice (eds.), Blackwell companion to phonology, 416–439. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, Amanda L., Johanna Brugman, Bonny Sands, Levi Namaseb, Mats Exter & Chris Collins
2007 The sounds of N|uu: Place and airstream contrasts. Working Papers of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 161. 101–160.Google Scholar
Mini, B. M., S. L. Tshabe, F. M. Shoba & P. N. van der Westhuizen
2003 The greater dictionary of Xhosa. Vol 2: K to P. Alice: University of Fort Hare.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Peter
2002 The archaeology of Southern Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Msimang, Christian Themba
1989 Some phonological aspects of the Tekela Nguni dialects. PhD dissertation, University of South Africa.
Mzamane, G. I. M.
1949 A concise treatise on Phuthi with special reference to its relationship with Nguni and Sotho. MA Thesis, University of South Africa, Fort Hare.
Nhlapo, Jacob
1945 Nguni and Sotho: A practical plan for the unification of the South African Bantu languages. Cape Town: African Bookman.Google Scholar
Nyamende, Abner
1994 Regional variation in Xhosa. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 261. 202–217.Google Scholar
Ownby, Carolan Postma
1981 Early Nguni history: Linguistic suggestions. South African Journal for African Languages, Supplement 11. 60–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1985 Early Nguni history: The linguistic evidence and its correlation with archaeology and oral tradition. PhD dissertation, University of California Los Angeles.
Pahl, H. W., A. M. Pienaar & T. A. Ndungane
1989 The greater dictionary of Xhosa. Vol 3: Q to Z. Alice: University of Fort Hare.Google Scholar
Pakendorf, Brigitte, Koen Bostoen & Cesare de Filippo
2011 Molecular perspectives on the Bantu Expansion: A synthesis. Language Dynamics and Change 11. 50–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pakendorf, Brigitte, Hilde Gunnink, Bonny Sands & Koen Bostoen
2017 Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact: A cross-disciplinary approach. Language Dynamics and Change 71. 1–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parkington, John & Simon Hall
2009 The appearance of food production in Southern Africa 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. In Bernard K. Mbenga, Carolyn Hamilton & Robert Ross (eds.), The Cambridge history of South Africa: Volume 1: From early times to 1885, 63–111. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pelling, James N.
1966 A practical Ndebele dictionary. Bulawayo: Daystart Publications.Google Scholar
Poulos, George & Christian T. Msimang
1998 A linguistic analysis of Zulu. Pretoria: Via Afrika.Google Scholar
Roux, Justus
2007 Unresolved issues in the representation and phonetic description of click articulation in Xhosa and Zulu. Language Matters 381. 8–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rycroft, D. K.
1981 A concise SiSwati dictionary. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
Sands, Bonny
1991 Evidence for click features: Acoustic characteristics of Xhosa clicks. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 801. 6–37.Google Scholar
Sands, Bonny & Tom Güldemann
2009 What click languages can and can’t tell us about language origins. In Rudolf P. Botha & Chris Knight (eds.), The cradle of language, 204–218. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sands, Bonny & Hilde Gunnink
2019 Clicks on the fringes of the Kalahari Basin Area. In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 703–724. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Sands, Bonny, Amanda Miller, Johanna Brugman, Levi Namaseb, Chris Collins & Mats Exter
2006 1400 item N|uu Dictionary. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Schadeberg, Thilo C.
2009 Appendix: On the origin of Zulu depressor consonants. Language Sciences 311. 193–198.Google Scholar
Schulz, Stephan, Antti Olavi Laine, Lotta Aunio & Nailya Philippova
2019 Click variation and reacquisition in two South African Ndebele varieties. In Lotta Aunio & Axel Fleish (eds.), Linguistic diversity research among speakers of Isindebele and Sindebele in South Africa, 213–282. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.Google Scholar
Semo, Armando, Magdalena Gayà-Vidal, Cesar Fortes-Lima, Bérénice Alard, Sandra Oliveira, João Almeida, António Prista, Albertino Damasceno, Anne-Maria Fehn, Carina Schlebusch & Jorge Rocha
2019 Along the Indian Ocean coast: Genomic variation in Mozambique provides new insights into the Bantu expansion. Molecular Biology and Evolution 371. 406–416. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sengupta, Dhriti, Ananyo Choudhury, Cesar Fortes-Lima, Shaun Aron, Gavin Whitelaw, Koen Bostoen, Hilde Gunnink, Natalia Chousou-Polydouri, Peter Delius, Stephen Tollman, F. Xavier Gómez-Olivé, Shane Norris, Felistas Mashinya, Marianne Alberts, AWI-Gen Study, H3Africa Consortium, Scott Hazelhurst, Carina M. Schlebusch & Michèle Ramsay
2021 Genetic substructure and complex demographic history of South African Bantu speakers. Nature Communications 121. 2080. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sibanda, Galen
2004 Verbal phonology and morphology of Ndebele. PhD dissertation, University of California Berkeley.
Skhosana, Philemon Buti
2009 The linguistic relationship between Southern and Northern Ndebele. PhD dissertation, University of Pretoria.
Sommer, Gabriele & Rainer Voßen
1992 Schnalzwörter im Yei (R.41). Afrika und Übersee 751. 1–42.Google Scholar
Taljaard, P. C., J. N. Khumalo & S. E. Bosch
1991 Handbook of Siswati. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. & Terrence Kaufman
1988 Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traill, A., J. S. M. Khumalo & P. Fridjhon
1987 Depressing facts about Zulu. African Studies 461. 255–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traill, Anthony
1985 Phonetic and phonological studies of !Xóõ Bushman. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
Traill, Anthony & Rainer Vossen
1997 Sound change in the Khoisan languages: New data on click loss and click replacement. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 181. 21–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tshabe, S. L. & F. M. Shoba
2006 The greater dictionary of Xhosa. Vol 1: A to J. Alice: University of Fort Hare.Google Scholar
van der Spuy, Andrew
1990 Phonological relationships between the Southern Bantu languages. African Studies 491. 119–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dyk, Philippus Reynoldus
1960 ’n Studie van Lala: sy fonologie, morfologie en sintaksis. PhD dissertation, University of Stellenbosch.
Vossen, Rainer
1997 What click sounds got to do in Bantu. In Brigit Smieja & Meike Tasch (eds.), Human contact through language and linguistics, 353–366. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Whelton, Michael John
2016 Si-Swati-English Dictionary (Fifth edition). Centurion: RedOystor Media.Google Scholar
Wilkes, A.
1997 Language contact and language change: The case of Southern Transvaal Ndebele. South African Journal of African Languages 171. 75–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ziervogel, Dirk
1952 A grammar of Swazi (siSwati). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
1959 A grammar of Northern Transvaal Ndebele. Pretoria: Van Schaik.Google Scholar
Zungu, Elphas Mphunyuzwa
1999 A comparative phonological and morphological analysis of the North and South Lala dialects of Tekela Nguni. PhD dissertation, UNISA.