ǂUngkue is an extinct ǃKwi language or dialect of the Vaal River region of South Africa, with records of it being spoken in Warrenton. It was recorded by Carl Meinhof, and was closely related to the neighboring ǁKā language (or dialect) recorded by Dorothea Bleek; they in turn are related to Nǁng, which has a single remaining speaker as of 2023. It has the Bleek label SIIb.

ǂUngkue
Native toSouth Africa
RegionVaal River
Extinctmid 20th century[1]
Tuu
  • ǃKwi
    • Ghaap-Khalahari
      • Danster ǃUi
        • ǂUngkue
Language codes
ISO 639-3gku
Glottologkxau1242

Like ǀXam, ǂUngkue used 'inclusory' pronouns for compound subjects:

ǃhoeti

lion

nan

and

koro

jackal

nan

and

tuē

ostrich

n

they

a

?PAST

‖ʼa

go

ǃhoeti nan koro nan tuē n a ‖ʼa

lion and jackal and ostrich they ?PAST go

'The lion and jackal and ostrich, they went'. (Meinhof 1929)

Doculects

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Güldemann (2019) lists the following doculect:[2]

Label Researcher Date Location Notes
ǁKhʼau Meinhof 1929 Warrenton-Windsorton Bleek label SIIb.

References

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  1. ^ ǂUngkue at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ Tom Güldemann. 2019. Toward a subclassification of the ǃUi branch of Tuu. Paper presented at Afrikalinguistisches Forschungskolloquium at Humboldt Universiät zu Berlin, 8 January 2019. 10pp.