English Explanatory Dictionary

Khoisan

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. The group of languages associated with the Khoisan including the Khoi, Kx'a and Tuu families, sometimes to the inclusion of the Hadza and Sandawe language isolates of Tanzania.
noun
  1. A member of the group of non-Bantu Southern African indigenous people: the Khoi or San people.

Pronunciation

/ˈkɔɪsɑːn/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Khoisan.wav /ˈkɔɪˌsɑn/

Word forms

Khoisan Khoi-San Khoisans

Etymology

From Khoi + San, from the pastoral Khoi tribe (formerly also called Hottentots) and the hunter-gatherer San (also known as Bushmen). Coined by Isaac Schapera in 1930, in linguistic usage since the 1950s (following Joseph Greenberg, Studies in African Linguistic Classification, 1955).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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