Khoisan, plural noun

Forms:
Also Xhoisan.
Origin:
Coined in German in 1928 by L. Schultze, from Khoikhoin (see Khoikhoi) + San (see San).
1. The Khoikhoi and San peoples collectively; Hottentot noun sense 3 a; cf. Boschman Hottentot. Also attributive. See also Capoid noun.
Note:
See note at San sense 1.
1930 I. Schapera KhoiSan Peoples 5The term Khoisan, recently coined by Schultze to denote the racial stock to which the Bushmen and the Hottentots belong, has..been accepted..as a convenient generic name for these people. The term is compounded of the names Khoi-Khoin, by which the Hottentots call themselves, and San, applied by the Hottentots to the Bushmen.
1966 J.P. van S. Bruwer S.W. Afr.: Disputed Land 21The Khoisan peoples of the click languages, namely Bushmen, Dama and Nama, were experiencing the clash of cultures between nomadic hunters and pastoralists.
1976 A.R. Willcox Sn Land 119In recognition of the similarity in some physical characteristics of the khoikhoi and the san, the term khoisan has been invented to describe the common features and a possible ancestral race or sub-race from which they originated.
1980 D.B. Coplan Urbanization of African Performing Arts. 434Khoisan, The aboriginal, non-Bantu-speaking, non-Negro inhabitants of South Africa. Colloquially known as Hottentot (Khoi, pastoralist) and Bushman (San, hunter-gatherer).
1982 M. Mzamane Children of Soweto 25He asked what difference it made to me whether Jan van Riebeeck had met the Khoisan or the Incas when he landed at the Cape.
1983 S. Afr. 1983: Off. Yrbk (Dept of Foreign Affairs & Info.) 77The Bushman (San) and Hottentots (Khoikhoin), collectively known as Khoisan.
1985 A. Tredgold Bay between Mountains 149There were..crude stone choppers and other indications that this had been the home of Khoisan strandlopers.
1985 Weekly Mail 12 July 11The original inhabitants of much of South Africa were of Khoisan origin and they were slaughtered by invaders both black and white.
1987 B. Lau Namibia in Jonker Afrikaner’s Time 19Boer farmers..won their new freedom and property largely at the expense of the local Khoisan population who were dispossessed of their land, lost their stock, became servants or slaves, and generally suffered a great measure of violence.
1991 J. Coulter in Weekend Post 4 May (Leisure) 3All witnessed..the agility of the Khoisan. They would identify themselves with a buck bounding across the..veld with flying leaps.., or mime the inimitable gait of the baboon lumbering along.
[1994 Hogarth in Sunday Times 18 Sept. 22PAC general secretary Benny Alexander’s new name !Khoisan X, might not be as politically correct as he thinks it is...His new name translates roughly into poor rascal. It is derived from the Nama word Khoi, meaning simply person, and their derogatory term, San, for someone who owns no cattle, or is a rascal. The name is mired in racist and colonial overtones, being a portmanteau word coined by a German anthropologist to lump together people once known as Hottentots or Bushmen.]
2. The group of languages or dialects spoken by these peoples; Hottentot noun sense 3 b. Also attributive. See also Khoikhoi sense 2, San sense 2.
1930 I. Schapera KhoiSan Peoples 438The vocabularies of the Khoisan languages are necessarily very restricted along certain lines.
1977 C.F. & F.M. Voegelin Classification & Index World’s Lang. 201South African Khoisan. Central...36. San = Saan.
1977 E.A. Gregersen Language in Africa 125The traditional notion of Khoisan actually encompasses five independent and unrelated language groups.
1978 Annual Bulletin of Logopedics (Univ. of Tokyo) XII. 113Click sounds characterized by the ingressive velaric airstream..are found in the Khoisan (the Hottentot and Bushman) languages.
1990 Weekly Mail 21 Sept. 7The American Committee on Africa took..exception...Why, they ask, is there ‘no mention of the..extermination of San and Khoisan-speaking peoples and cultures’.
The Khoikhoi and San peoples collectively; Hottentot noun sense 3 a;
The group of languages or dialects spoken by these peoples; Hottentot noun sense 3 b. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence Khoisaniform  adjective; Khoisanoid  adjective and noun; see also Capoid adjective, Gariepine.
1971 P.V. Tobias in Std Encycl. of Sn Afr. III. 95The Capoids comprise the Bushman and, in a mixed state, the Hottentots, Korana and Sandawe of Tanganyika. Thus the term covers the congeries of people commonly grouped as the Khoisanoid or Khoisaniform race or complex of races. The Capoids or Khoisanoids were formerly regarded as one of the five major subdivisions of living mankind.
1986 P. Maylam Hist. of Afr. People 34The archeological evidence..does suggest, according to Derricourt, an ‘admixture of Khoisanoid, Negroid and Caucasoid’.
1991 J. Coulter in Weekend Post 4 May (Leisure) 3These unique African people are the descendants of the ancient Capoid or Khoisanoid division of man.
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