Lost in translation

Abstract

Abstract Here, we provide new perspectives on the relationship between the extinct Angolan language Kwadi and the Khoe languages of southern Africa. Using an innovative approach which combines newly collected data from two Kwadi rememberers with a reanalysis of historical recordings and fieldnotes, we were able to reconstitute the Kwadi phoneme inventory and relate Kwadi to Proto-Khoe and its daughter branches Khoekhoe and Kalahari Khoe through regular sound correspondences. Our reconstruction of 127 lexical roots in form and meaning provides further evidence for a Khoe-Kwadi language family and shows that the lexical and phonological proximity between Proto-Khoe-Kwadi and Proto-Khoe is closer than would be expected from the significant differences that Khoe and Kwadi display in the domains of morphology and syntax. Taken together, our study contributes to a better understanding of diachronic sound change in languages with phonemic click sounds and introduces novel ways to incorporate different historical data sources.