Khoisan Languages

A group of languages belonging to the Southern African Khoisan (Bushman).

Today only a few Khoisan groups lead a hunter-gatherer existence in the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa, mostly in the country of Botswana.

http://www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/arch/khoisan.htm

The KhoisanLanguages are famous for the click consonants. It's really mind-blowing - here's a sample:

http://ling.cornell.edu/plab/amanda/juspeech.html


They are currently being forcibly expelled from their ancestral lands, where they have been living as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, to make way for diamond mining concessions to De Beers and other companies.

De Beers is the largest diamond supplier in the world, currently alleged to be one of the motive forces behind the genocidal policies of the Botswana government against the Kalahari bushman (Khoisan) people, a group of hunter-gatherer tribes who have lived in the Kalahari semi-desert for thousands of years, as attested by their ancient rock-paintings.

In the past few years, large swathes of the Bushman ancestral lands have been conceded to De Beers. The Bushmen have been forcibly placed in brutal relocation camps, described as "places of death". The water sources of those who have managed to escape have been cut off.

Refs: http://www.survival-international.org/vigil.htm http://www.sourceuk.net/articles/a03805.html


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