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Shua or Shuakhwe is a Khoisan language of central Botswana with about 6,000 speakers (2004 Cook). Like many Khoisan languages, it has clicks and ejectives and distinctive tones (that is, tone alone can make the difference between one word and another). Unlike most Khoisan languages, but like Nama, the most neutral word order is SOV, though word order is relatively free. As with most Khoisan languages, there are postpositions. There is a tense-aspect marker ke which often appears in second position in affirmative sentences in the present tense, giving X Aux S O V order (e.g. S Aux O V).
For example,
- K'arokwa ke ʔǀuizi ʔa gam
- boys Asp rock-pl obl throw
- "The boys are throwing rocks"
- ʔǀui-zi ʔa ke k'arokwa gam
- rock-pl obl Asp boys throw
- "The boys are throwing rocks"
This marker appears first in certain subordinate clauses, in a manner reminiscent of V2 languages such as German, where a clause-initial complementizer is in complementary distribution with a second position phenomenon (in German, it would be the finite verb which appears in second position).
[edit] Dialects
- Deti
- Ganádi
- Shua-khwe
- Nǀoo-khwe
- Kǀoree-khoe or ǀOree-khwe
- ǁʼAiye or ǀAaye
- ǀXaise or ǀTaise
- Tshidi-khwe or Tcaiti or Sili or Shete Tsere
- Danisi or Demisa or Madenasse or Madinnisane
- Cara
[edit] External links
