Not attested. [Bleek 1929: 15] gives the form ʒã̀ in this meaning; it is then later quoted as ʒã̀ˤ in [Bleek 1956: 30]. However, not only does this morpheme have no external parallels whatsoever in the meaning 'all', but it also looks very much like a variant of the numeral 'two' q.v., and the sole text example quoting it (i ʒã̀ˤ ǀu ǀxoa 'we are all alive') most likely means just 'both of us are alive', cf. Juǀ'hoan è-cá 'us two' etc.
König & Heine 2008: 71. Quoted as wèēsè in [Heikkinen 1986: 26].
Proto North Khoisan:*wòè-še
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. No alternate stems. Reconstruction shape: The reconstruction follows the Ekoka variant as phonetically more archaic in its vocalism; the variant *wè-še is also possible. Extra low tone in Ekoka is not, however, confirmed by the rest of the data. Semantics and structure: The form is morphologically complex: the derivation is transparently seen in Ekoka, cf. wȍhà 'forever', wȍhè 'some time ago, already, just' [König & Heine 2008: 71]. The meaning of the suffix *-še, however, remains unknown.
Bleek 1956: 206. Quoted as tɔ̀ː in [Bleek 1929: 17]. Secondary synonym: ɡǂwá [Bleek 1956: 649] ~ ɡǂwa [Bleek 1929: 17]. The latter root is less common in North Khoisan and may easily represent a recent borrowing from Central Khoisan.
Bleek 1956: 649. Quoted as ɡǂwàː in [Bleek 1929: 17]; ɡǂòā in [Snyman 1980: 33]. The latter source adds a secondary synonym: tȁoˤ-tȁoˤ [ibid.]. This may be a more archaic (and "genuine" root) than ɡǂoa, a highly probable borrowing from Central Khoisan, but it is completely absent in Bleek's primary sources for the wordlist.
König & Heine 2008: 34. Translated as 'ash'. The dictionary also lists two more compound forms glossed as 'ashes' (sic): dàʔà šŋ̄ŋ́ and dàʔà !̯ȍʰà, where dàʔà = 'fire'. The first form literally means 'fire-excrement'; the main morpheme in the second, !̯ȍʰà, is suspiciously similar to ɡǀǀȍʰà, which indicates either a case of mistranscription or areal transmission (the latter is quite possible, since !̯ȍʰà is a direct parallel to Juǀ'hoan ɡǂȍȁʰ 'soap', a cultural word most likely transmitted from Central Khoisan *ɡǂóà 'ashes').
Proto North Khoisan:*tȍˤ
Distribution: The original root is well preserved in the Southern and Central clusters. The Northern cluster seems to have displaced it with a borrowing of Central Khoisan origin (*ɡǂóà 'ashes'; the initial lateral click in Ekoka indicates a different root, but is possibly mistranscribed). Reconstruction shape: The reconstruction follows the Juǀ'hoan variant, although it is not in perfect agreement with Angolan !O!Kung tȁoˤ-tȁoˤ in terms of vocalism. (A secondary development *oˤ > aoˤ is not out of the question).
Bleek 1956: 348. Quoted as ɳǀɔː in [Bleek 1929: 19]. Same word as 'skin' q. v. More specifically, may be expressed by the compound !au-ɳǀɔ, lit. 'tree-skin' [Bleek 1956: 348].
Bleek 1956: 622. Quoted as ɳǀǀʌ̀li in [Bleek 1929: 19]. The same source also lists a secondary synonym: ɳǀàni, confirmed in [Bleek 1956: 344]. Semantic difference is unclear, but the second word has no external parallels.
König & Heine 2008: 61. Quoted as ɳǀǀùrì 'peel or bark' in [Heikkinen 1986: 26].
Proto North Khoisan:*ɳǀǀoˤʔrV
Distribution: The original root is fully preserved in the Northern cluster and partially in the Southern one. Known alternates are limited to a metaphoric semantic transfer {'skin' > 'bark'} in the Central cluster. Reconstruction shape: The reconstruction is problematic in the vocalism department; however, the development *o > u is attested for Ekoka several times, particularly before the front vocalism of the second syllable. We tentatively follow the more complex shape of the Juǀ'hoan variant.
König & Heine 2008: 30; Heikkinen 1986: 24. The former source lists the meaning 'stomach', the latter source gives 'belly'; most likely, a case of polysemy as in all the other dialects in this family.
Proto North Khoisan:*ɡ!ú
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are generally regular and trivial. Semantics and structure: Polysemy {'belly' & 'stomach'} was present on the proto-level.
Bleek 1956: 471; Bleek 1929: 22. Secondary synonym: ɳ!wiː [Bleek 1956: 488; Bleek 1929: 22]. It is unclear if this form, with no parallels in other NK dialects, is related to ɳ!a or represents an entirely different root.
Bleek 1956: 612. The transcription ɳǀe-ǀǀá in [Bleek 1929: 22] is most likely a misprint for ɳǀǀe-ǀǀá; the latter form, along with several variants, is quoted in [Bleek 1956: 618] with the meaning '(to be) large, increase' (a compound of 'big' with another stem).
Bleek 1956: 612, 613. Quoted as ɳǀǀáːa in [Bleek 1929: 22]. Singular subject action verb/adjective; the plural subject form is ɳǀǀéɳǀǀe [Bleek 1929: 22]. Secondary synonym: ǀǀaǀǀa [Bleek 1956: 565]; [Snyman 1980: 33]. The latter is clearly a different root (with reduplication and without the nasal click efflux), but the semantic difference is unclear, and external parallels for ǀǀaǀǀa are lacking.
König & Heine 2008: 57. Quoted as ɳǀǀàʔà in [Heikkinen 1986: 26]. Singular subject action verb/adjective; the plural subject form is ǀǀȁhã̀ ibid.
Proto North Khoisan:*ɳ!̯àʔà ~ *ɳ!̯ã̀ʔã̀
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are generally regular, indicating an original retroflex nasalized click and a glottal stop between the vowels. Tonal reconstruction is highly approximate. Various forms show fluctuations between nasalized and plain vowels; this may be due to the influence of the nasalized click.
König & Heine 2008: 67. Quoted as cʼāmà in [Heikkinen 1986: 22]. Plural form is čʼá-m̏hè, indicating that -mà, pl. -m̏hè is detachable as the standard diminutive suffix. The original form is still found as čʼám 'poultry, bird (life form), aeroplane', i. e. čʼámà < *čʼám-mà.
Proto North Khoisan:*cʼā(m)-mà
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are more or less straightforward. The alveolar affricate regularly develops into postalveolar in Ekoka. Tonal reconstruction is approximate. Semantics and structure: the word is morphologically complex, the second component clearly identifiable as Proto-North Khoisan *-ma 'small; diminutive suffix'. The root morpheme is therefore *cʼā or, perhaps, *cʼam (cf. the notes to Ekoka !Xung).
Bleek 1956: 477. Quoted as ɳ!éː in [Bleek 1929: 22]. The latter source also quotes taː in the same meaning, but the word is Central Khoisan in origin (in [Bleek 1956] it is only attested for Naro, a close contact of !Kung).
Grootfontein !Kung:
Not attested.
!O!Kung:ɳǀà2
Bleek 1956: 341; Bleek 1929: 22. [Snyman 1980: 34] quotes the forms ɳ!aì-ǀǀòá (sg.), ɳ!ài-kxóm (pl.) in the meaning 'to bite off'. The first root in these compounds is clearly of Proto-North Khoisan descent, unlike the isolated form ɳǀà in D. Bleek's transcription. Bleek, however, does not mention the existence of a separate ɳ!ai 'bite' in !O!Kung, and it is not highly likely that ɳǀà could be a mistranscription of the former.
König & Heine 2008: 50. Compound form (second component is ḿ 'to eat' q.v.). A synonymous form [König & Heine 2008: 50] is !ʼāè; this may be simply a phonetic variant of the original form with the complex preglottalized nasalized click. Quoted as ʔɳ!āē (Western dialect) ~ ɳ!é (Eastern dialect) in [Heikkinen 1986: 25].
Proto North Khoisan:*ʔɳ!āē
Distribution: Preserved in most daughter dialects, with the possible exception of Bleek's !O!Kung, with a recent replacement of unknown status. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are generally regular. The special preglottalized nasalized click is preserved in Ekoka, but merges with the simple nasal click in the other dialects. The vocalic correspondence "Juǀ'hoan ai : Ekoka ae" indicates an older *ae.
Bleek 1956: 292, 621; Bleek 1929: 22. L. Lloyd's texts contain examples of both words used in the meaning 'blood', with no obvious differentiation between the two. External data indicate that this may be a gradual replacement of the old root ǀʼĩ with the innovation ɳǀǀoru.
Bleek 1956: 72. Quoted as yalu ~ yula in [Bleek 1929: 22]; yàlò ~ yűlà in [Snyman 1980: 34]. The word contains a near-unique case of initial y- (not only in !O!Kung, but in North Khoisan as a whole), shows no external parallels and is consequently, in all likelihood, a borrowing from an unknown source. J. Snyman adds a secondary synonym, ǀàḿ, whose external connections are much stronger, but D. Bleek does not mention this word in her recordings of "N3".
König & Heine 2008: 60. Quoted as ɳǀǀóˤɽú in [Heikkinen 1986: 26].
Proto North Khoisan:*ǀʼaŋ
Distribution: The original root is well preserved everywhere except for the Northern dialect cluster, but is encountered even there, seemingly as an archaism. Replacements: (a) !O!Kung yalo of unknown origin, probably non-native because of initial y-; (b) Northern *ɳǀǀoˤru, probably an authentic root but without a good etymology; (c) Northern *ǀam, quoted here for Angolan !Xung and also reflected in several other dialects of this cluster; the similarity with *ǀʼāŋ̀ is notable, but the origin is probably different (click influxes as well as finals are incompatible). Reconstruction shape: Reconstruction of the vocalic part of the syllable is highly questionable and problematic (the correspondence series is unique). Only the presence of a velar nasal is certain; neither the quality of the first vocalic element nor the original tonal scheme can be fully ascertained.
Bleek 1956: 447, 492; Bleek 1929: 23. D. Bleek seems to occasionally confuse !ʼu 'bone' with !ʰu 'horn' (her recorded polysemy 'bone / horn' is most likely fictitious), which explains the unexpected appearance of variants with simple velar efflux (instead of the expected glottal stop).
Bleek 1956: 447. Quoted as !úː in [Bleek 1929: 23]. The lack of glottal stop efflux is strange and may imply that L. Lloyd, just like D. Bleek after her, was confusing the word 'bone' with the word 'horn'.
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are generally regular and trivial. The word is normally assigned the regular high tone, but P. Dickens indicates an extra high tone for Juǀ'hoan. This is reflected in the reconstruction, but there is no certainty about the presence of a separate extra high tone in Proto-North Khoisan.
Bleek 1956: 390; Bleek 1929: 28. Different from cʼa 'female breast' [Bleek 1929: 24] (curiously, the form is absent in [Bleek 1956]).
!Kung:ǂé2
Bleek 1956: 659; Bleek 1929: 28.
Grootfontein !Kung:
Not attested.
!O!Kung:toa ǀʼõ3
Bleek 1956: 355. Quoted as tʼoa ǀʼõ in [Bleek 1929: 28]. Obviously a compound; neither of the two parts are, however, attested individually, or have transparent equivalents in closely related dialects. Obscure.
König & Heine 2008: 66. Quoted as cō̃ā̃ in [Heikkinen 1986: 22]. Different from kūú 'female breast' [König & Heine 2008: 42] and šám 'female breast, nipple' [König & Heine 2008: 17].
Proto North Khoisan:*ɡ!òʔá #
Distribution: Found in the Southern and Central clusters, but conspicuously absent in the Northern dialects. Replacements: (a) !O!Kung toaǀʼõ, of unknown origin; (b) Ekoka čō̃ā̃, possibly = various dialectal forms, recorded by J. Snyman, with the meaning 'lung', e. g. Tsintsabis soʔã, Cuando čõʔã, etc., eventually = Juǀ'hoan čȍˤʔò; if so, clearly an innovative development {'lungs' > 'chest'}. On the other hand, the word čàʔnà 'lung' is attested in Ekoka all by itself [König & Heine 2008: 65], so this may be some sort of semantic contamination. Reconstruction shape: the only reliably transcribed form is in Juǀ'hoan; reconstruction variants may include *ɡ!!òʔá, with a retroflex click.
Bleek 1956: 83, 102. Both forms are phonetic variants, to which it is perhaps possible to add a third one, gu [Bleek 1956: 49], although in this form the quoted example for the word reflects intransitive use. [Bleek 1929: 25] quotes two more roots, duː and če, in the meaning 'burn (tr.)', but neither is verified through [Bleek 1956], where the form duː is translated as 'to heat slowly', and the form če is not found at all.
Bleek 1956: 102, 108. Quoted as kuúː in [Bleek 1929: 25].
Grootfontein !Kung:
Not attested.
!O!Kung:
Not attested. In [Bleek 1929: 25] the possible equivalent is listed as ɡǀǀ ɑ̀lasǝ, but the more accurate entry in [Bleek 1956: 525] explains this as ɡǀǀàla-se 'to burn in (smth.)' = ɡǀǀàla 'to mark, tattoo, write'. [Snyman 1980: 35] has ɳǂȁeˤ 'to burn down'.
König & Heine 2008: 42; Heikkinen 1986: 21. Polysemy: 'to burn / to roast / to shine' (used as both transitive and intransitive stems). Secondary synonym: !̯ʼʰȕbȉ [König & Heine 2008: 95; Heikkinen 1986: 24] (exact difference in meaning stays unclear, but this form has no external parallels).
Proto North Khoisan:*kūʔú
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are regular and trivial, except for the tonal reconstruction, which is approximate (the pattern is probably mid-rising, as in Ekoka).
König & Heine 2008: 84. Quoted as !ūʔúrú in [Heikkinen 1986: 24]. Also encountered as a compound: ɡǀǀāō !ūlú, lit. 'hand-nail' [König & Heine 2008: 34].
Proto North Khoisan:*!̯ūʔrú
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: The rare retroflex click *!̯ is clearly indicated by the variation between alveolar and lateral articulation in particular dialect clusters, and is explicitly attested in the Grootfontein dialect. Ekoka !Xung, however, irregularly yields alveolar reflexation instead of lateral, possibly due to semantic contamination with *!uru 'quiver' ('nail' as 'hand sheath'?). The correspondence "Juǀ'hoan -VʔV- : Ekoka -V-" is currently interpreted as reflecting an original sequence *-Vʔ-[C]-.
Bleek 1956: 505, 522; Bleek 1929: 29. Same word as 'rain'. Judging by available data, the !Kung dialect described by L. Lloyd is the only one where the meaning 'cloud' itself can be expressed by the same word as 'rain', without an additional second component ('hair', etc.): cf. examples such as ɡǀǀa ti ǂʰauwa ɳǀeá 'clouds travel in the sky'. It cannot be verified whether they may be interpreted as a metonymical 'rain travels in the sky'; the dialect may have had a special word for 'white cloud', but it is not attested in L. Lloyd's data.
Bleek 1929: 29. Dubious entry, since it is not confirmed in [Bleek 1956], nor anywhere else. Also, D. Bleek indicates that the plural form is !ɔli, possibly implying that the form is morphologically segmentable, but no such mechanism of segmentation exists in living North Khoisan dialects.
Ekoka !Xung:ǀǀòbō-xà4
König & Heine 2008: 100. Glossed as 'white cloud', distinguished from !ʰȍwà 'cloud' (= 'raincloud') [König & Heine 2008: 82].
Proto North Khoisan:*ɡ!!à=!kxúí #
Distribution: The compound form, lit. 'sky-hair', is encountered in the Southern and Central clusters, but not in the Northern one, where several different roots are present, none of them with a solid common North Khoisan etymology (none, however, can be seen as obvious borrowings). Since even different dialects of the Northern cluster disagree in between themselves, we present no alternate etyma. Reconstruction shape: See under 'rain' and 'hair', resp.
Bleek 1929: 29; Bleek 1956: 680. Alternately transcribed as ǂxẽ in [Bleek 1956: 679]. A possible synonym is ǀau 'to be cold, bare' [Bleek 1956: 303]; however, in the English-ǀǀKxauǀǀen vocabulary of [Bleek 1929] only the first root is adduced.
Bleek 1956: 656. [Bleek 1929: 29] gives the form ǂarau instead, but it is unconfirmed in [Bleek 1956] and unsupported by external data; possibly erroneous.
König & Heine 2008: 89. Quoted as ǂàʔō in [Heikkinen 1986: 23]. Polysemy: 'cold / cool / good, well'.
Proto North Khoisan:*ǂàʔū
Distribution: Preserved (mostly) in the Northern and Central clusters. Replacements: (a) Southern cluster: *ǂxãĩ, possibly reflecting a rare semantic development {'to tremble' > 'to be cold'}; (b) !O!Kung ǀkxáú of unknown origin (not likely to be a mistranscription of *ǂaʔu). Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are regular and trivial.
Dickens 1994: 275. Secondary synonym: ɡǀàè [Dickens 1994: 202], glossed as 'come, arrive (by day)'. The two words are also encountered as a compound: ci̋-ɡǀàè 'come'. Contexts, idiomatic use, and statistical frequency all suggest that ɡǀàè means a more temporally marked 'arrive' rather than simply 'come'.
Bleek 1956: 277. Quoted as ɡǀe in [Bleek 1929: 30]. The latter source also adds a secondary synonym še ~ ša; analysis of contexts in [Bleek 1956: 178] as well as external data, however, suggests that the basic meaning of this word is 'to return, come back', whereas ɡǀe is simply 'come' (cf. the following example: sa ti u, sa ti ɡǀeː 'they two go out, they two come in', where it forms an antonymous pair with u 'to go').
Doke 1925: 153. Somewhat dubious; corresponding forms in related dialects (e. g. Juǀ'hoan hȍȅ) usually have an imperative meaning ('come!'). Since Doke gives no syntactic contexts, it is possible that in the Grootfontein dialect it is also used primarily as an imperative. Alternately, the word ɡǀȅː [Doke 1925: 157] is also translated as 'to travel, to come', which is, however, unlikely to represent the Swadesh meaning either.
Bleek 1956: 216, 228. Quoted as siː ~ ciː ~ čiː in [Bleek 1929: 30]. The latter source adds ɡǀeː as a potential synonym, only scantily confirmed through examples in [Bleek 1956] (statistically, ci is much more frequent).
König & Heine 2008: 28; Heikkinen 1986: 23. Quasi-synonyms include ǀǀxāì [König & Heine 2008: 101] (glossed as 'come, cross'; meaning given as 'to come (Western dialect), to come out (Eastern dialect)' in [Heikkinen 1986: 25]) and čí 'come!' (imperative) [König & Heine 2008: 65].
Proto North Khoisan:*cí
Distribution: The original root is strongly preserved in the Central and Southern clusters, but in the Northern cluster it seems to have been relegated to the imperative function ('come!'), replaced in the original meaning by *ɡǀàè. The latter root is also of Proto-Northern Khoisan origin, and co-exists in most dialects with *cí with subtle differences in semantics (judging by certain examples and translations, *cí = 'to come (proceed in the listener's direction)', *ɡǀàè = 'to arrive (reach the final destination)'. Replacements: Northern cluster: *ɡǀàè {'to come' > 'to arrive'}. Reconstruction shape: Correspondences are regular and trivial, including reconstruction of a high tonal pattern.
Bleek 1956: 566. Quoted as ǀǀáí in [Snyman 1980: 36]; ǀǀé: in [Bleek 1929: 33]. The latter source additionally lists ǀǀʼòː as a synonym; this is a transparent borrowing from Central Khoisan. It is not confirmed in [Bleek 1956]. Singular subject action verb; the plural subject form is ǀǀau [Bleek 1956: 561].
König & Heine 2008: 96. Singular subject action verb; the plural subject form is ǀǀàō [ibid.]. Quoted as ǀǀāē (Eastern dialect), ǀǀē (Western dialect) in [Heikkinen 1986: 25] (plural subject form is ǀǀāō).
Proto North Khoisan:*!̯e
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: The click is to be reconstructed as retroflex, based on perfect correspondences all around (except for the strange transcription with palatal ǂ- in //Kxau//en). The vowel was most likely *e, with regular diphthongization in Juǀ'hoan and certain Ekoka lects. Tonal information is contradictory and so far inconclusive. The word had a lexical variant *!̯ao for the plural action verb; the two may have been morphologically related on a Pre-Proto-North Khoisan level, but the model is not seen in any other examples.
Dickens 1994: 207. Secondary synonyms: (a) ɡǂʰòà (with the exact same rare click as the initial consonant, this must be a dialectal variant of the same root) [Dickens 1994: 207]; (b) !kxúí (= 'hair, fur'; probably a tabooistic equivalent) [Dickens 1994: 315].
König & Heine 2008: 32. Quoted as ɡǂʰōē in [Heikkinen 1986: 23].
Proto North Khoisan:*ɡǂʰo-ĩ ~ *ɡǂʰo-e
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects, although in different morphological shapes. Reconstruction shape: All reliably transcribed sources agree upon *ɡǂʰ- as the original click articulation, and labial articulation of the following vowels. Juǀ'hoan, however, shows at least two different morphological variants: ɡǂʰo-a and *ɡǂʰo-ĩ > ɡǂʰũ-ĩ, and Ekoka adds a possible third (ɡǂʰo-e). This can be interpreted as reflecting three original nominal suffixes (archaic class markers?) and is analogous to similar variations in many other cases. The bare root would then be reconstructible as *ɡǂʰo-.
Bleek 1956: 180, 230; Bleek 1929: 34. Secondary synonym: kxaː [Bleek 1956: 117; Bleek 1929: 34]. The latter, however, is unquestionably a Central Khoisan word, not met in actual texts.
König & Heine 2008: 18. Quoted as cʰȁŋ (Eastern dialect), ṣːàŋ ~ ṣʰàŋ (Western dialect) in [Heikkinen 1986: 22].
Proto North Khoisan:*čʰȉŋ
Distribution: Preserved in all daughter dialects. Reconstruction shape: Initial *č- clearly indicated by Juǀ'hoan data. Reconstruction of the vocalic part is problematic, mainly because of the lack of any traces of a nasal consonant or nasalization in Juǀ'hoan. Nevertheless, loss of the nasal in this particular context may still have been conditioned phonologically. Aspiration in Juǀ'hoan is confirmed in several other dialects; it may be connected with the ultra-low tone attested for Ekoka.
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