"Khoisa" redirects here. For the genus of moth, see Khoisa (moth).
Khoisan
San man of Namibia
Total population
~ 400,000[1] (c. 2010)
Regions with significant populations
Namibia, Botswana, South Africa
Languages
Xhosa,[2] Khoe-Kwadi languages, Kx'a languages, Tuu languages
Religion
Mainly Christian and African Traditional Religion (San religion)
Related ethnic groups
Tswana, Xhosa, Coloured, Griqua, Hadzabe
Khoisan/ˈkɔɪsɑːn/KOY-sahn, or Khoe-Sān (pronounced[kxʰoesaːn]), is a catch-all term for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen (formerly "Hottentots") and the Sān peoples (also called "Bushmen"). Khoisan populations traditionally speak click languages and are considered to be the historical communities throughout Southern Africa, remaining predominant until European colonisation in areas climatically unfavorable to Bantu (sorghum-based) agriculture, such as the Cape region, through to Namibia, where Khoekhoe populations of Nama and Damara people are prevalent groups, and Botswana. Considerable mingling with Bantu-speaking groups is evidenced by prevalence of click phonemes in many especially Xhosa Southern African Bantu languages.
Many Khoesān peoples are the descendants of a very early dispersal of anatomically modern humans to Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago. (However, see below for recent work supporting a multi-regional hypothesis that suggests the Khoisan may be a source population for anatomically modern humans.)[3] Their languages show a vague typological similarity, largely confined to the prevalence of click consonants. They are not verifiably derived from a common proto-language, but are today split into at least three separate and unrelated language families (Khoe-Kwadi, Tuu and Kxʼa). It has been suggested that the Khoekhoeǁaen (Khoekhoe peoples) may represent Late Stone Age arrivals to Southern Africa, possibly displaced by Bantu expansion reaching the area roughly between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago.[4]
Sān are popularly thought of as foragers in the Kalahari Desert and regions of Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Northern South Africa. The word sān is from the Khoekhoe language and refers to foragers ("those who pick things up from the ground") who do not own livestock. As such, it was used in reference to all hunter-gatherer populations who came into contact with Khoekhoe-speaking communities, and was largely referring to the lifestyle, distinct from a pastoralist or agriculturalist one, and not to any particular ethnicity. While there are attendant cosmologies and languages associated with this way of life, the term is an economic designator rather than a cultural or ethnic one.
^Their total numbers are estimated at roughly 300,000 Khoikhoi and 90,000 San:
200k Nama people (2010): Brenzinger, Matthias (2011) "The twelve modern Khoisan languages." In Witzlack-Makarevich & Ernszt (eds.), Khoisan languages and linguistics: proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium, Riezlern / Kleinwalsertal (Research in Khoisan Studies 29).
100k Damara people (1996): James Stuart Olson, « Damara » in The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, p. 137.
50-60k San people in Botswana (2010): Anaya, James (2 June 2010). Addendum – The situation of indigenous peoples in Botswana (PDF) (Report). United Nations Human Rights Council. A/HRC/15/37/Add.2..
^Parkinson, Christian (2016-06-14). "The first South Africans fight for their rights". BBC News. Most [Khoisan people] now speak Afrikaans as their first language.
^Ragsdale, Aaron P.; Weaver, Timothy D.; Atkinson, Elizabeth G.; Hoal, Eileen G.; Möller, Marlo; Henn, Brenna M.; Gravel, Simon (2023). "A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa". Nature. 617 (7962): 755–763. Bibcode:2023Natur.617..755R. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06055-y. PMC 10208968. PMID 37198480.
^Barnard, Alan (1992). Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A comparative ethnography of the Khoisan peoples. New York, NY; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Khoisan /ˈkɔɪsɑːn/ KOY-sahn, or Khoe-Sān (pronounced [kxʰoesaːn]), is a catch-all term for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally...
The Khoisan languages (/ˈkɔɪsɑːn/ KOY-sahn; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a number of African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph...
Khoisan revivalism is the phenomenon of individuals claiming to be Khoisan (descendants) and defending indigenous rights. The Khoisan revival movement...
indigenous languages. The term "hotnot" is a derogatory term used to refer to Khoisan people and coloureds in South Africa. The term originated from the Dutch...
Afrikaans has adopted words from other languages, including German and the Khoisan languages, an estimated 90 to 95% of the vocabulary of Afrikaans is of...
evidence of substantial borrowing of words between Tuu languages and other Khoisan languages, including basic vocabulary. Khoekhoe in particular is thought...
The beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse, including various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural...
in Central Africa, the Hadza people in northern Tanzania, and various Khoisan populations across southern Africa remaining in existence into the era...
language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan populations. The official population count...
considered to be a branch of a Khoisan language family, and were known as Central Khoisan in that scenario. Though Khoisan is now rejected as a family,...
in the buttock region, is most notably (but not solely) found among the Khoisan of Southern Africa. It has also been observed among Pygmies of Central...
Khoisan X (4 March 1955 – 13 October 2010), formerly Benny Alexander, was a South African political activist born in Kimberley, South Africa. Bennett...
Saharan, and the various families previously grouped under the umbrella term Khoisan. In addition, the languages of Africa include several unclassified languages...
or 5th century CE. They displaced, conquered, and absorbed the original Khoisan, Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu slowly moved south. The earliest ironworks...
north, the core economic hubs of the country. Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth...
inhabit the country. Among the indigenous peoples of South Africa, the Khoisan foraged over 300 species of edible food plants, such as the rooibos shrub...
coast of Africa and came across Khoisan-speaking people; "as a result of this contact, the Xhosa people borrowed some Khoisan words along with their pronunciation...
Khoekhoe and Khoisan groups have brought cases to court demanding restitution for 'cultural genocide and discrimination against the Khoisan nation’, as...
airflow is not dependent on the lungs. These include clicks (found in the Khoisan languages and some neighboring Bantu languages of Africa), implosives (found...
some authors later switched back to using the name Bushmen. The compound Khoisan is used to refer to the pastoralist Khoi and the foraging San collectively...
generally refer to Black people, who are expatriates in South Africa. The Khoisan of South Africa are the minority part of indigenous South Africans that...
heavy use of click consonants and therefore were formerly classified as Khoisan, a grouping now recognized as obsolete. It belongs to the Khoe language...
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