Tshwa language


Tsoa or Tshwa, also known as Kua and Hiechware, is an East Kalahari Khoe dialect cluster spoken by several thousand people in Botswana and Zimbabwe.
One of the dialects is Tjwao, the only Khoisan language in Zimbabwe, where "Koisan" is a language officially recognised in the constitution.

Dialects

Tsoa–Kua is a dialect cluster, which is still poorly studied but seems to include:
The Cire-cire dialect has the following consonant inventory:
BilabialDentalAlveolarLateralPost-
alveolar		VelarUvularGlottal
Nasal click
Oral click
Glottalized click
Affricate click
Nasal stop
Oral stop
Affricate
Fricative
Approximant

The clicks have a very uneven distribution: Only a dozen words begin with one of the palatal clicks, and these are replaced by dental clicks among younger speakers. Only half a dozen words start with one of the alveolar clicks, and half a dozen more with one of the affricated clicks. These rather marginal sounds are placed in parentheses in the chart.
Tsoa has the five vowels. It is not clear if Tsoa has long vowels, or simply sequences of identical vowels.
There are two tones, high and low, plus a few cases of mid tone.
In the northern dialect of Kua, like all other East Kalahari Khoe languages, the palatal click series has become palatal stops. Southern Kua has retained the palatal clicks, but the dental stops have palatalized, as they have in Gǀui and ǂʼAmkoe. Thus northern Kua has 'ash' and 'eland', whereas southern Kua has 'ash' and 'eland'.