27 · CURIOSITY · CONTACT LINGUISTICS

Clicks and contact

How clicks entered some Bantu languages

Some languages of southern Africa incorporated these sounds through contact with other communities.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

A sound map distinguishing the Khoe, Kx’a and Tuu families and Bantu languages with clicks — **EDITORIAL VISUALISATION DECLARED · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS**
Editorial visualisation · Contextual correspondence
Declared editorial visualisation, based on the cartography and sources of the fact sheet; it is not an exact historical frontier.

History and context

Several southern Bantu languages incorporated clicks through contact with Khoe, Kx’a and Tuu languages.

Studies combine linguistics and marriage patterns, but each language has a distinct history.

Evidence and interpretation

Linguistic contact is firmly supported; the exact social mechanisms remain regional inferences.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date: precolonial contacts with varying chronologies and subsequent continuity
Location: Southern Africa and the Kavango–Zambezi region
Material: Recordings, phonemes, vocabulary and historical/genetic data
Context: Borrowing, prestige and marriage
Curatorial reading: The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Dossier axis: beliefs
Research record: BANTU · bantu-belief-clicks
Documentary coverage: 2 museum, heritage, primary corpus or research sources for this stop.

A SHARED TOPIC, DIFFERENT MOMENTS

Objects connected through time

Follow a topic across the collections. A shared tag is a way to compare objects, not proof that one culture influenced another.

The order uses the midpoint of each approximate date range; ranges can overlap. Spacing does not represent elapsed time. Swipe, scroll or use the arrows. With the sequence focused, use ← / →, Home or End.

THE CURRENT OBJECT

Its date is not sufficiently established to place it on the timeline. We keep it here, separate from the dated objects.

You are viewing

precolonial contacts with varying chronologies and subsequent continuity

Clicks and contact

Bantu-speaking worlds

Contacts with varying chronologies; not the date of an individual object.

Current record

Languages1 dated object

First third of the 1st century BCE
Hand of Irulegui
Iberians
First third of the 1st century BCE; date of the destroyed dwelling beside whose entrance it appeared.
Read the record

1 / 1In the centre: Hand of Irulegui

Also connected, without a comparable date (5)

These objects are not placed after the others: an unknown date does not mean a more recent object.

49 Classical VoicesIberians · Authors and traditions between the 6th century BCE and 4th century CE
Ba-ntuBantu-speaking worlds · A long linguistic history; an academic term since the 19th century
Before Bantu WorldsBantu-speaking worlds · Modern linguistic reconstruction on historical and living languages
Indian Ocean KiswahiliBantu-speaking worlds · from the first millennium CE; major development in medieval and modern times
Voices from outsideGaramantes · Fifth century BCE–Late Antiquity

You can scroll the first group without JavaScript. The other topics are also available below.

Sound recordings

Current object, without a comparable date: Clicks and contact.

Two songs, missing names · 15 July 1952 · Batwa / Twa histories
Batwa on a colonial record · 1954 · Batwa / Twa histories

Without a comparable date (not part of the chronological order):

Healing dance · Recordings 1968–1972 · San histories
Musical bows · Twentieth-century ethnomusicological documentation · San histories

Exchange and trade

Current object, without a comparable date: Clicks and contact.

Without a comparable date (not part of the chronological order):

A Kerma vessel deposited at Abydos · Second Intermediate Period · Ancient Egypt
Akrotiri · c. 1700–1500 BCE · Greek worlds
Dia’s strata · 9th century BCE–2nd millennium CE · Mande Worlds
Indian Ocean Kiswahili · from the first millennium CE; major development in medieval and modern times · Bantu-speaking worlds
Jenne-jeno contexts · ca. 250 BCE–1400 CE · Mande Worlds
Kumbi Saleh · medieval occupation; prominent phases between the 11th and 13th centuries · Mande Worlds
Lothal · ca. 2400–1600 BCE · Indus civilisation
Meluhha · ca. 2600–1900 BCE · Indus civilisation
Nile towards Nubia · ca. 3300–2800 BCE · Ancient Egypt
The Banquet of Seuthes II · Towards 400 BCE. Anabasis episode · Thracians
Travelling objects · Mainly Roman period · Garamantes

Community heritage

Current object, without a comparable date: Clicks and contact.

A map with the right to be closed · 2012–2013 · Batwa / Twa histories
Eleven articles · Adopted April–May 2022; public portal 2025 · Batwa / Twa histories

Without a comparable date (not part of the chronological order):

Healing dance · Recordings 1968–1972 · San histories
Kakadu · Regional corpus ≈20,000 BP–contemporary era · Prehistory
Living m’bolon · The present with historical memory · Mande Worlds
Memory in performance · 19th–20th centuries and transmitted practice · Bantu-speaking worlds
Quinkan Country · Regional art up to ≈27,000 BP · modern continuity · Prehistory
Sosso-Bala · Tradition linked through narrative to the 13th century; the present instrument and its custodianship have their own chronology · Mande Worlds

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: September 5, 2026.

Clicks can also be lost

The study by Pakendorf and colleagues compares northern and southern varieties of fwe. In the north, certain velar consonants systematically correspond to clicks conserved in the south. Since these velars do not always reproduce the consonants prior to the incorporation of clicks, the authors infer a later loss, not an original absence of contact. The example adds a direction to linguistic change: adopting a sound does not guarantee retaining it indefinitely. The current distribution is the result of incorporation, transmission and substitution, and needs to be reconstructed before being used as historical evidence.

Research · Pakendorf, Gunnink, Sands and Bostoen · Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact: A cross-disciplinary approach, 2017Access recorded: September 5, 2026.

Location and territory

REGIONAL AREA

Southern Africa and the Kavango–Zambezi regionCurrent maximum linguistic envelope and historical corridors; it was not a single political territory nor was it occupied simultaneously. The footprint indicates the indicative centre of the sphere, not a border or an exact point.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

Did you enjoy this exhibit?

Your opinion helps us improve the museum. You can change it whenever you like.

Loading your rating…