Khoekhoe

WALS coordinates: 25° 30′ S, 18° E

spoken in Namibia

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nama
Routledge:
  • Nama/Damara
Other:
  • Hottentot,
  • Khoekhoe,
  • Nama,
  • Nama (Khoekhoe),
  • Khoekhoegowab
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Moderately large Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants No laterals Phonology
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9A The Velar Nasal No velar nasal Phonology
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10A Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels None Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Moderately complex Phonology
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13A Tone Complex tone system Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants All present Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants Clicks Phonology
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20A Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative Morphology
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21A Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case Morphology
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21B Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection monoexponential TAM Morphology
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22A Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word Morphology
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23A Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking Morphology
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24A Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking Morphology
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25A Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking Morphology
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25B Zero Marking of A and P Arguments Non-zero marking Morphology
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26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing Morphology
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27A Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication Morphology
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28A Case Syncretism No case marking Morphology
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29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic Morphology
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30A Number of Genders Three Nominal Categories
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31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based Nominal Categories
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32A Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal Nominal Categories
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes Nominal Categories
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36A The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural Nominal Categories
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examples
38A Indefinite Articles Indefinite affix Nominal Categories
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39A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive Nominal Categories
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40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking Nominal Categories
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41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast Nominal Categories
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43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated Nominal Categories
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examples
44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person Nominal Categories
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45A Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction Nominal Categories
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examples
48A Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking Nominal Categories
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49A Number of Cases 2 cases Nominal Categories
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50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics Nominal Categories
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52A Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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56A Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different Nominal Categories
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58A Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists Nominal Syntax
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58B Number of Possessive Nouns None reported Nominal Syntax
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59A Possessive Classification Two classes Nominal Syntax
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60A Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed Nominal Syntax
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61A Adjectives without Nouns Without marking Nominal Syntax
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62A Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals Nominal Syntax
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63A Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with' Nominal Syntax
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64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity Nominal Syntax
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65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking Verbal Categories
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66A The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions Verbal Categories
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67A The Future Tense No inflectional future Verbal Categories
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68A The Perfect Other perfect Verbal Categories
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection Verbal Categories
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70A The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives Verbal Categories
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71A The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative Verbal Categories
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72A Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system Verbal Categories
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73A The Optative Inflectional optative absent Verbal Categories
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74A Situational Possibility Verbal constructions Verbal Categories
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75A Epistemic Possibility Other Verbal Categories
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76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap Verbal Categories
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77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials Verbal Categories
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78A Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense Verbal Categories
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examples
79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion None Verbal Categories
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81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb OV Word Order
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84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XOV Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun Word Order
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90B Prenominal relative clauses Relative clause-Noun (RelN) dominant Word Order
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91A Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles Second position Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Final subordinator word Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN Word Order
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98A Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard) Simple Clauses
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examples
99A Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard) Simple Clauses
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examples
100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative Simple Clauses
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101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects Obligatory pronouns in subject position Simple Clauses
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102A Verbal Person Marking Only the P argument Simple Clauses
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103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking Simple Clauses
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104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb Simple Clauses
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105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction Simple Clauses
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106A Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive Simple Clauses
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examples
107A Passive Constructions Present Simple Clauses
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108A Antipassive Constructions No antipassive Simple Clauses
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108B Productivity of the Antipassive Construction no antipassive Simple Clauses
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109A Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases Simple Clauses
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109B Other Roles of Applied Objects No other roles (= Only benefactive) Simple Clauses
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111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative particle Simple Clauses
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113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both Simple Clauses
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114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Question particle Simple Clauses
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117A Predicative Possession 'Have' Simple Clauses
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118A Predicative Adjectives Mixed Simple Clauses
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119A Nominal and Locational Predication Different Simple Clauses
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120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible Simple Clauses
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121A Comparative Constructions Locational Simple Clauses
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122A Relativization on Subjects Gap Complex Sentences
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit Complex Sentences
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125A Purpose Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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126A 'When' Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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127A Reason Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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128A Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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131A Numeral Bases Decimal Lexicon
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examples
136A M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns Lexicon
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136B M in First Person Singular No m in first person singular Lexicon
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137A N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns Lexicon
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137B M in Second Person Singular No m in second person singular Lexicon
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143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb VNeg Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes None Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes VNeg Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb SOVNeg Word Order
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144B Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb Immed postverbal Word Order
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144L The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages SOVNeg Word Order
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144P NegSOV Order No NegSOV Word Order
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144Q SNegOV Order No SNegOV Word Order
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144R SONegV Order No SONegV Word Order
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144S SOVNeg Order Word&NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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