Xun in Huíla Province

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DigitalResources Electronic Survey Report 2018-015

Sociolinguistic Survey of !Xun in Huíla Province

Linda Jordan and Isata Manuel

Sociolinguistic Survey of !Xun in Huíla Province

Linda Jordan and Isata Manuel

SIL International® 2018

Data and materials collected by researchers in an era before documentation of permission was standardized may be included in this publication. SIL makes diligent efforts to identify and acknowledge sources and to obtain appropriate permissions wherever possible, acting in good faith and on the best information available at the time of publication

Abstract

This survey was conducted in the west and central parts of Huíla Province in south-western Angola, specifically in the communities of Kakwa, Mupembati, Derruba, Mapunda, Mume and Hupa. The main focus of this study was the local varieties of !Xun ([vaj] and [knw]), part of a northern Ju macrolanguage that is spoken by San communities in the provinces of Huíla, Kuando Kubango and Cunene. The main purpose of this research was to ascertain the number and location of distinct linguistic variants spoken by the San population in Huíla Province in order to inform potential language development efforts. Language mapping exercises were facilitated in five communities to identify neighbouring speech varieties and discover the relationship between them. The results of this study point to the existence of two major variants of !Xun in Huíla Province. In spite of the linguistic differences, the San in this province have a highly cohesive group identity. The use of !Xun is restricted to the domain of the family and !Xun-speaking neighbours. It is almost exclusively the San people who can speak !Xun, so the San must use either the local Nyaneka variant or Portuguese to communicate with anyone outside their ethnic group. Their language can be considered vital but potentially threatened due to the small population of speakers.

Contents

Abstract 1 Introduction and background information 1.1 Identification of local speech varieties 1.2 Population 1.3 Geography 1.4 Previous research 2 Procedures 2.1 Purpose of the research 2.2 Methodology 2.2.1 Interviews 2.2.2 Language mapping 3 Results and data analysis 3.1 Interviews 3.1.1 Social and cultural considerations 3.1.2 Language contact and shift 3.1.3 The case of Mapunda 3.2 Language mapping 4 Summary and conclusions References

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1 Introduction and background information

This survey was conducted in the west and central parts of Huíla Province in south-western Angola, specifically in the communities of Kakwa, Mupembati, Derruba, Mapunda, Mume and Hupa. The main focus of this study was the local varieties of !Xun ([vaj] and [knw]), part of a northern Ju macrolanguage that is spoken by San communities in the provinces of Huíla, Kuando Kubango and Cunene. Fieldwork took place from 29 July to 7 August 2013 at the invitation of the Instituto de Línguas Nacionais (ILN) and with the support of staff from the provincial culture and education offices. The research was conducted with the kind cooperation of the municipal1 governments in Chibia, Lubango, Cacula and Quipungo and also counted on local support at the communal level. The main purpose of this research was to ascertain the number and location of distinct linguistic variants spoken by the San population in Huíla Province in order to inform potential language development efforts. Information was obtained through observation, informal conversation and group interviews to gain insights on the area’s sociolinguistic situation. Language mapping exercises were facilitated in each of five communities to identify neighbouring speech varieties and probe the relationship between them. Data on the distribution of local variants was also collected to aid in the revision of the Ethnologue mapping database for Angola.

1.1 Identification of local speech varieties

In all of the San communities that were visited in Huíla Province, the people identified themselves as !Xun (phonetically realised as [ǃχũ]). This included communities whose speech varieties are not necessarily intelligible. Apparently “!Xun” is the autonym for the ethnic group, while “!Xun thali” ([ǃχũ tʰali]) is the name of their language. For the sake of simplicity, this report will continue to use “!Xun” as the language name. The surrounding Nyaneka people refer to the !Xun as “Kwankala.” The !Xun also apply this term to themselves, at least in the presence of Nyaneka speakers. Nevertheless, it is somewhat derogatory and should be avoided. Another such name given to the !Xun by others is “Kamusekeli,” used farther to the south and east in Kuando Kubango Province and perhaps also in northern Namibia. Those who are called “Kamusekeli” refer to themselves as “!Xun,” just like those who live in Huíla Province. There do appear to be different variants of !Xun even within the confines of Huíla Province, as will be discussed in greater detail in section 3.2. Even though intelligibility may be quite limited between speakers of two different !Xun variants, they may not necessarily share a knowledge of Portuguese or the same variant of Nyaneka. In such cases there is no other option than to converse in !Xun, each in his own variant, restricting the conversation to basic words that both parties understand. The !Xun variant called “Kamusekeli” by the neighbouring ethnic groups in Kuando Kubango Province is identified as “Northwestern !Kung” [vaj] in the Ethnologue (Simons and Fennig 2018), while the Kwankala of Huíla Province is identified as “Kung-Ekoka” [knw]. These both belong to the cluster of speech varieties formerly known as “Northern Khoisan,” though most specialists no longer regard Khoisan to be a single genetic unit. More work is needed to determine how many !Xun variants exist in southern Angola and to properly classify them in relation to those identified for northern Namibia.

1 The administrative structure in Angola comprises the following three main levels in order of decreasing scope: província (province), município (municipality), and comuna (commune). Here the English word “municipality” has been used to translate município, but the reader should be aware that this does not refer to a single city or town. The average município is big enough to contain several population centres, though the largest and most important of them is the municipal seat. “Comuna” also does not usually refer to a single village but rather a group of villages.

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1.2 Population

According to the provincial culture office, Lubango, Quipungo, Cacula and Chibia are the municipalities that are home to the major San populations of Huíla Province. Lubango has the greatest number of !Xun at an estimated 1,354, followed by Quipungo with 880, Cacula with 536 and Chibia with 292. Allowing for smaller populations in municipalities that border on neighbouring provinces to the south and east, the total !Xun population in Huíla is likely well over three thousand. The size of individual !Xun communities seems to average around one hundred individuals.

1.3 Geography

Map 1 below gives an overview of Huíla Province, the area where fieldwork for this study was conducted. The six communities that were visited belong to the four different municipalities discussed above, as follows: 1. Lubango municipality • Kakwa in Hoque commune • Mapunda neighbourhood in the town of Lubango 2. Quipungo municipality • Derruba in Derruba commune • Mupembati in Hombo commune 3. Chibia municipality • Mume in Kapunda Kavilongo commune 4. Cacula municipality • Hupa in Tchiquaqueia commune

Map 1. Map of Angola showing the location of Huíla Province, outlined in red

© 2017 Google map data, with overlay The major !Xun communities in Huíla Province are found along an arc that extends from the area around Mume northwest through Mapunda, then northeast through Kakwa, Hupa and Derruba, ending in 3 the southeast with Mupembati and the communities near Bicuari National Park (see map 2). According to the interviewees in Mume, they have no contact with the residents of Mupembati, making this more of a chain rather than a cluster or network of communities. The highest concentration of !Xun settlement can be found around Kakwa, Hupa and Derruba, spanning the borders of three municipalities.

Map 2. Map of western Huíla Province with provincial border, featuring the !Xun communities where fieldwork was conducted

1.4 Previous research

The !Xun (otherwise known as “Ju”2) speech varieties form a chain that stretches from southern Angola to northern Namibia and northwestern Botswana. There is every indication that this is indeed a chain linked by mutual intelligibility, though internal differences are such that speakers of varieties at opposite ends of the chain do not necessarily understand each other (Heine and Honken 2010). An internal classification of !Xun was developed initially by Snyman (1997), distinguishing twelve varieties. This was later refined by Sands and Miller-Ockhuizen (2000) and Sands (2010), who distinguished fifteen varieties. Their classification scheme was based on regular sound correspondences, but König and Heine (2001, 2008) have proposed a somewhat different classification with eleven varieties, based on grammatical features. In both schemes, the Angolan !Xun varieties fall under the northern cluster or dialectal group, which is separate from the groups containing most of the varieties found in northern Namibia and north-western Botswana. The varieties within the northern group are not well documented, so more research is needed to fill in the gaps.

2 The name “Ju” was assigned by linguists to classify it as a macrolanguage. 4

2 Procedures

2.1 Purpose of the research

The main goal of this research was to ascertain the number and location of distinct linguistic variants spoken by the San population in Huíla Province in order to inform potential language development efforts. This involved the identification and comparison of the San speech varieties found in the province, with a heavy emphasis on the perspective of mother tongue speakers as gauged by participatory group discussions. GPS data was also collected in order to refine the language map of the area and to revise the Ethnologue mapping database for Angola.

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 Interviews

Informal background interviews with knowledgeable staff of the provincial government’s culture and education offices were helpful in determining the locations where fieldwork would be conducted. In the !Xun communities, supplementary questions asked of the group during the language mapping exercises added to our understanding of the sociolinguistic situation.

2.2.2 Language mapping

The main method used in this study was language mapping as described by Hasselbring (2010). A mapping exercise was conducted in a group setting at each of the following five locations: Kakwa, Mupembati, Derruba, Mume and Hupa. This helped clarify the relationships between the local !Xun varieties as well as investigate the sociolinguistic situation in the area, and ultimately helped gain an insider’s perspective on identity and intelligibility. It should be noted that this research is part of an ongoing study of these speech varieties that will triangulate participant language mapping with measures of linguistic similarity such as lexicostatistics and comprehension testing results. The perception and opinions of mother tongue speakers are valuable data, particularly in the planning and implementation of language development programs, but the value increases when compared to other more traditional methodologies. In each location, participation in the group was open to all first language speakers of the local dialect of !Xun. In essence it was almost like interviewing the whole community, as normally quite a few people showed up. However, these focus groups are usually fluid, as people come and go during the interview. Participants were asked to evaluate the speech varieties in communities with which they have contact. They listed neighbouring !Xun communities, grouped them according to similarity, ranked them according to intelligibility, and then rated them according to comprehension level and method of communication. The results of these dialect mapping exercises are shown in section 3.2, and the procedure is outlined below. 1. Map all the !Xun communities with which you are familiar. 2. Group together any communities that speak the !Xun language in the same way. 3. Choose the two communities (or groups of communities) where people speak most like your own and rank them 1 and 2. 4. Rate all the communities outside your own by how much you understand of their speech: all, more than half, half or less than half. 5. Label all the communities outside your own by how you communicate with their members: each speaks his own language, we speak our own but they change, they speak their own but we change, or we all change to a third language.

The map was created with separate pieces of paper to represent each community, loops of string to mark groups of communities, and symbols to represent comprehension levels and methods of communication. At the end of each language mapping exercise, photos were taken of the completed map in order to record the results and aid in further analysis.

3 Results and data analysis

3.1 Interviews

3.1.1 Social and cultural considerations

There are several types of outside social and cultural influence that affect the !Xun communities of Huíla Province, some of which serve to distinguish one community from another, creating somewhat of a hierarchy among them. Some are more advantaged than others, receiving more benefits and involvement from the outside world as well as more potential language contact and cultural pressure toward shift. One of the possible distinguishing features of a community can be the presence of church work. Generally this was referred to in a positive light by the government officials advising the research team. Their viewpoint tends to be that church involvement in a community yields material benefits and decreases the incidence of social problems like alcoholism. When choosing the sites for fieldwork in Quipungo municipality, it was initially recommended that we visit Kankhombo and Mupalala,3 as these are communities without as many advantages as others. There is no church work and little other outside influence. In the communities we did visit there was church involvement from various sources, including the Roman Catholic Church in Derruba and Hupa, the Igreja Evangélica Sinodal de Angola (IESA) in Kakwa and Mupembati, and the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) in Mume. Another element that can distinguish one community from another is the presence of a school. All the !Xun communities we visited had a nearby primary school. On a previous visit to Derruba during research on the Nyaneka variants of Huíla Province, it was possible to briefly interview the local headmaster. He confirmed that there were a small number of students from the !Xun community who attended there, but that there was also quite a high dropout rate. School attendance formally teaches Portuguese and informally reinforces knowledge and use of the local Nyaneka variant through interaction with Nyaneka students. However, it is doubtful that formal education is having any sort of large-scale impact on the youth at this time, since integration into the educational system is still difficult for the often semi-nomadic !Xun. The situation with probably the greatest general social and cultural impact on the !Xun communities is their economic dependence on their Nyaneka neighbours. Most men and women work for Nyaneka farmers, looking after their livestock and crops. Some have their own livestock, but this is probably the exception rather than the rule. The reality is that in order to make a living, a working knowledge of the local Nyaneka variant is an absolute necessity for !Xun adults. Another social consideration is the pattern of marriage among the !Xun communities of this area. These communities are often isolated from each other, groups of one hundred or so !Xun surrounded by the Nyaneka majority. Nevertheless, they do have contact with each other and intermarry frequently. For example, the residents of Hupa may marry other !Xun from as far away as Gambos municipality or Mupembati, and the family living in Mapunda have relatives by marriage in the areas of Derruba and Kakwa. On the other hand, intermarriage with the surrounding Nyaneka is pretty much unheard of. Though Nyaneka men regularly impregnate young !Xun women, they do not acknowledge the children and leave them to be raised by the !Xun community. As a result, there are many !Xun speakers who physically resemble the neighbouring Bantu ethnic groups.

3 Unfortunately, it was not possible to visit these communities because of their relative isolation. 6

Over the years, all the social and cultural contact and pressures experienced by the !Xun communities have resulted in some internal changes. In all the communities that we visited, even the elders do not have traditional !Xun names. All names are either Portuguese or Nyaneka in origin. They also deny having any knowledge of traditional !Xun songs, apparently singing Nyaneka songs and participating in Nyaneka rites of passage instead of their own. At the same time, it must be recognised that the !Xun interviewees may not have felt free to share information about their own traditional rituals, especially in communities with church influence.

3.1.2 Language contact and shift

The social and cultural contact in this area has naturally resulted in a great deal of language contact and pressure toward language shift in these communities. As stated above, school attendance results in learning and reinforcement of competence in Portuguese and Nyaneka. Those two languages are also promoted by church work in the !Xun communities, depending on which church has most influence in the area and that church’s preferred working language or languages. Church work has also resulted in a degree of Umbundu proficiency in some communities through the use of the Umbundu Bible translation or other Christian materials. Over and over it was repeated that others are not interested in learning the !Xun language. The interviewees in Mume reported that some of their Mwila neighbours have learned it, but very few (only three or so). Because of the !Xun’s economic dependence on others, they must learn an outside language to communicate. In general, it appears that adults of either sex are fluent in their local variant of Nyaneka, though in Mupembati the interviewees reported somewhat lower proficiency in Oluhanda.4 All adults seem to speak the Nyaneka variant equally well, while children acquire it as they grow. On the other hand, Portuguese is more spoken by men, as women do not travel as often and therefore have less contact with Portuguese speakers. In spite of being a low-prestige variety in a multilingual environment, the !Xun language still appears to be vital, and all the children learn to speak it well. The people identify with !Xun and have no desire to leave it for Nyaneka. The exception is the case of the family that lives in Mapunda, which will be detailed below.

3.1.3 The case of Mapunda

The research team had the opportunity to interview a San family in Mapunda, a neighbourhood on the edge of the town of Lubango. Originating from the Rundu area of northern Namibia, this family left the Diriku area of Angola’s Kuando Kubango Province in 1971 and stayed for some time at the Mission of Kuvango in eastern Huíla Province. From there they moved to their current location in Mapunda. There is also a related family of five to ten people working on a farm in Gambos municipality, southeast of Lubango. The oldest woman in the family used the Bantu term “Kamusekeli” for her language but said that their own name for it is “!Xun.” The older members of the family who still speak the language fluently reported less than 50 percent comprehension of the !Xun spoken in Huíla Province. They can understand the local varieties starting in the Menongue area of Kuando Kubango Province and south from there, but they do not even understand the !Xun in Matala, a municipality that lies east of Quipungo. 5 This family’s language repertoire includes !Xun, Ngangela (a macrolanguage of Kuando Kubango Province) and Portuguese, but they do not speak Olumwila, the local Nyaneka variant. The children of the family speak Portuguese instead of !Xun; their youngest !Xun speaker is twenty-five years old. The

4 “Everyone speaks it, but not 100 percent.” 5 Both Matala and Kuvango lie within Huíla Province, east of Quipungo. This indicates a definite break in comprehension between the varieties spoken in Huíla Province and those spoken farther to the east in Kuando Kubango Province. 7 younger ones can understand it, but they have no speaking ability. Even though the twenty-five to twenty-six year-olds speak it, they “do not speak well,” mixing !Xun with Portuguese.

3.2 Language mapping

When analysing the data from these dialect mapping interviews, it is particularly informative to look at which speech varieties were listed by each interview group as being fully or mostly comprehensible for mother-tongue speakers of their own variety. By noting the areas of overlap between the results received from different groups, it should be possible to sketch the patterns of linguistic relatedness between the variants of !Xun spoken in Huíla Province. The tables that follow in this section present the data collected during the language mapping exercises conducted with groups in Kakwa, Mupembati, Derruba, Mume and Hupa. Table 1 summarises the mapping exercise completed in Kakwa by mother tongue speakers of !Xun. Here it is interesting that the participants grouped Mapunda, Quipungo and Matala together as speaking similar varieties. The family residing in Mapunda, having originated in northern Namibia, speak a variety that has more in common with those of Kuando Kubango Province. By “Quipungo” the participants meant the !Xun communities in the eastern part of Quipungo municipality, namely Mupembati, Mupalala and Kankhombo. “Matala” refers to the communities found in the Calonga area of southern Matala municipality, including Mutyapulo and Mulondo. This shows that despite any linguistic distance that exists between the three variants grouped together here, they sound similar to the residents of Kakwa and are equally difficult for them to understand.

Table 1. Language mapping exercise with !Xun speakers in the community of Kakwa, Hoque commune, Lubango municipality

COMMUNITY COMPREHENSION COMMUNICATION KAKWAa Boa Viagem Mawenge Mucuio Chem-Chem Muhamba Hupa THE SAME Cacula full each speaks own variety Hinyinyiki Chibia Vissasa Kavissi Quilengues Chicala Kapeke Mapunda DISTANTLY each speaks a third Quipungo moderate b RELATED (common) language Matala a The community where the mapping exercise took place is always listed first, in capital letters. b This refers to a conversation in which neither participant can communicate directly in his/her mother tongue. They must either use a language of wider communication or speak through an interpreter.

Moving on to table 2, we can see that the results from the Mupembati interview group (which included participants from Mupalala and Kankhombo) are consistent with the analysis above. It appears 8 that these communities of eastern Quipungo municipality speak a !Xun variant so different from that of the area around Hoque commune that there is minimal comprehension between the two. In fact, it necessitates a switch to a third language, if they have one in common with the interlocutor.

Table 2. Language mapping exercise with !Xun speakers in the community of Mupembati, Quipungo municipality

COMMUNITY COMPREHENSION COMMUNICATION MUPEMBATI THE SAME Mupalala full each speaks own variety Kankhombo VERY DIFFERENT Derruba (more similar) Hoque each speaks different low partial VERY DIFFERENT (less Mutyapulo variety similar) Calonga

Another interesting piece of information is that there is apparently a third !Xun variant in Huíla Province, spoken in the communities of Mutyapulo and Calonga, which are located in the far south central part of the province between the Bicuari and Mupa national parks. This third variant is probably spoken in north central Cunene Province as well. It was rated by the Mupembati participants as being even more different from their own than the one spoken in Derruba and Hoque. Table 3 presents the data from the mapping exercise in the western Quipungo community of Derruba. This emphasises their solidarity with communities found farther to the west, such as Kakwa. It also reinforces the separateness of their variant from the one spoken in and around Mupembati, of which they claim only 50 percent comprehension. The variant spoken in and around Calonga makes another appearance here, being named as the one most different from that spoken in Derruba.

Table 3. Language mapping exercise with !Xun speakers in the community of Derruba, Quipungo municipality

COMMUNITY COMPREHENSION COMMUNICATION DERRUBA Hupa Muhamba Mucuio Chem-Chem Hoque high partial VERY SIMILAR Viamba Mambandi Chicala each speaks own variety Katepe Kakwa Kapeke Kankhombo DISTANTLY RELATED Mupembati moderate Mupalala Mutyapulo VERY DIFFERENT low partial Calonga

Something else worth mentioning at this point is the method of communication with speakers of the other variants. Regardless of the perceived comprehension level being inadequate, the Derruba participants claimed to speak in their own variant of !Xun when communicating with speakers of the other variants. This phenomenon was repeated in the subsequent mapping exercises, indicating a strong unified !Xun identity in spite of the linguistic differences between the variants. The results of the Mume mapping exercise, shown in table 4, bring us back to the idea (introduced in section 1.3) of the !Xun communities in Huíla forming an arc with Mume and environs at one end and the communities on the eastern side of Bicuari Park on the other. This arc is a dialect chain, and the comprehensibility of the !Xun varieties decreases as one moves farther away along the arc. The variant spoken in the Mume area groups with the one spoken in and around Hoque commune (Kakwa, etc.). Derruba’s variety is a bit more different but still highly comprehensible. Mupembati is where the break occurs, signalling the onset of a different variant. Mulondo is another community between the two national parks, and it represents the third variant, also spoken in Calonga and Mutyapulo.

Table 4. Language mapping exercise with !Xun speakers in the community of Mume, Kapunda Kavilongo commune, Chibia municipality

COMMUNITY COMPREHENSION COMMUNICATION MUME Viamba Mucuio Taima Nongelenge

Tchioko THE SAME full Hoque Tchinuambinda each speaks own variety Nonguvi Toto Kohi ya Mukanga VERY SIMILAR Derruba high partial VERY DIFFERENT Mupembati low partial COMPLETELY Mulondo none DIFFERENT

Hupa, represented by the data in table 5, unsurprisingly groups with Kakwa, Derruba and the surrounding communities. Being quite distant geographically from Mume, the Hupa participants find Mume’s variety a little different though still easy enough to understand. The two variants found around the edges of Bicuari Park are grouped together here with an equally low comprehension level.

Table 5. Language mapping exercise with !Xun speakers in the community of Hupa, Tchiquaqueia commune, Cacula municipality

COMMUNITY COMPREHENSION COMMUNICATION HUPA Cholo Viamba Chicala Mucuio Kakwa Hinyinyiki Mambondue THE SAME Cavingolo full Vicala Kapeke each speaks own variety Muhamba Mawenge Derruba Mambandi Simo Yombia Katepe VERY SIMILAR Mume high partial Mupembati Mutyapulo VERY DIFFERENT low partial Mupalala Kankhombo

Figure 1 brings together all five of the above maps to show the overall relationship of !Xun varieties in the area. The coloured loops6 that are drawn around community names are based on the comprehension level ratings assigned to their speech variety. For each community’s mapping exercise, a loop encompasses all communities that speak a variety rated at full comprehension, with a separate loop encircling any that speak a variety rated at or above high partial comprehension. To avoid confusion with all the different community names listed by mapping participants, the seven following names were chosen to represent major areas of interest: • Mume: the south-western communities of Chibia municipality • Kakwa: the north-western communities of Lubango municipality • Hupa: the north central communities of Cacula municipality • Derruba: the communities of western Quipungo municipality • Mupembati: the communities of eastern Quipungo municipality • Calonga: the communities between the Bicuari and Mupa parks • Kuando Kubango: the communities of Kuando Kubango Province

6 The different colours have no meaning of themselves. They are only meant to help distinguish between overlapping loops. 12

Figure 1. Composite diagram of !Xun communities, according to the perception of participants in the language mapping exercises. This visual representation again indicates the existence of three distinct !Xun variants in the province. The major variant, found in the west of this area, seems to hinge on the communities of Lubango municipality as represented by Kakwa in Hoque commune. Indeed, this is the area of highest population density for !Xun speakers in Huíla, with 1164 in that commune alone (Chiquemba 2013). The second variant, represented by Mupembati, is enclosed in a separate loop to signify the participants’ perception that it is no more than 50 percent intelligible with the varieties of any other areas shown here. The !Xun speech varieties spoken in Kuando Kubango Province and the community of Calonga appear as isolates on this map. It was not possible to visit the area around Calonga, though feedback in Mupembati indicates that a third major variant is spoken there. The Kuando Kubango variety is spoken by the family in Mapunda plus any of the !Xun communities located south and east of Menongue in Kuando Kubango Province. It is not yet known how the variety spoken around the Calonga area relates to those spoken in the provinces of Cunene and Kuando Kubango; further survey will be required to clarify this.

4 Summary and conclusions

The first site visited was Kakwa, in Hoque commune. According to the perception of the !Xun speakers there, there are two main variants of the language in Huíla Province. The other one, which is quite difficult for them to understand, was defined as being spoken in Quipungo (east or west not distinguished), Matala and Mapunda. Mapunda is a neighbourhood in the city of Lubango, on the edge of town. There is a single !Xun family who originally came from the area of Rundu in northern Namibia by way of Kuando Kubango in the 1970s. They said that they can only understand the !Xun from Menongue in Kuando Kubango Province southwards and that even the southern Matala variant was impossible for them to understand. This creates the impression of a particularly large gap in understanding between the !Xun variants in Huíla and those in Kuando Kubango and northern Namibia, though the autonym for the language seems to be the same throughout the whole area. The fact that this very different variant was included by the Kakwa informants in the same group as the two eastern Huíla variants seems to indicate that even the eastern Huíla variants are quite difficult for them to understand. The fact that they cannot distinguish between the more central variant in eastern Quipungo and the more peripheral variant in southern Matala may also indicate greater linguistic as well as geographic distance. 13

The second mapping exercise was conducted in Mupembati, in Hombo commune. This is where the possibility of a third separate Huíla variant was first raised. The variant of !Xun spoken in Mupembati and the neighbouring communities of Kankhombo and Mupalala is apparently the most central of the three found in Huíla Province, but they find it easier to understand the !Xun in western Huíla than that in the southern Matala area (Calonga, Mutyapulo and Mulondo). The third community to be interviewed, Derruba in Quipungo municipality near Sendi, confirmed and further reinforced this model of three !Xun variants spoken in Huíla Province. They see themselves as belonging to the western Huíla group along with Kakwa. However, being on the eastern margin of the area where this variant is spoken, they can perceive the difference between the variant in eastern Quipungo and that in the Calonga area of southern Matala. For them, the eastern Quipungo variant is easier to understand than the other. This confirms that the transition between the two main variants occurs within Quipungo municipality. The other two mapping exercises, conducted in Mume and Hupa, served to confirm and clarify the working hypothesis of two main !Xun variants plus a third peripheral one within Huíla Province. The exercise in Mume (Chibia municipality) was particularly helpful in confirming the extent of the western variant and the nature of the dialect chain extending all the way to the Calonga area between the Bicuari and Mupa parks. Regarding language vitality, !Xun appears to be vital though endangered and spoken by young children in the communities of Kakwa, Derruba, Mupembati, Mume and Hupa. It seems that many aspects of the traditional culture, such as !Xun names, songs and rituals, have disappeared. However, their ongoing status as a minority group who cannot be fully integrated into the majority culture has likely worked in favour of language maintenance. It also seems that the “critical mass” in terms of population is quite low, with a relatively isolated population in the hundreds being sufficient to maintain the traditional language. Only in Mapunda, where a single San family lives surrounded by Portuguese speakers, is !Xun being replaced by another language. There also seems to be a correlation between distance from the provincial capital of Lubango and language endangerment. The interviewees in both Hoque and Derruba insisted that everyone, regardless of age or gender could speak Oluhanda very well. In Mupembati the interviewees admitted to speaking the local Nyaneka variant with some difficulty; for them, !Xun is definitely their dominant language. Some interviewees in Mupembati said that San people from areas farther west seemed afraid to speak !Xun with them, though this could be on account of linguistic differences instead of a negative attitude toward !Xun in general. Finally, Portuguese seems to have more influence in communities with greater proximity to the provincial capital. Portuguese proficiency is also not distributed equally throughout the community in the same way as proficiency in the local variant of Nyaneka. Men tend to have higher proficiency in Portuguese than women, as they tend to be the ones who travel outside the community with greater frequency. There could also be some difference in proficiency according to age in those communities with greater access to formal education, where the children are attending school and learning Portuguese there. The use of !Xun is restricted to the domain of the family and !Xun-speaking neighbours. It is almost exclusively the San people who can speak !Xun, so the San must use either the local Nyaneka variant or Portuguese to communicate with anyone outside their ethnic group. Their language can be considered vital but potentially threatened due to the small population of speakers.

References

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