a subgroup of the Khoe language family, one of three branches of the Southern African Khoisan languages. Two main varieties have been distinguished: the first includes the extinct South African languages !Ora and Gri (click here--> for an audio clip of !Ora) and the dialects that were spoken along the southern Cape coast; the second type is Nama, also known as Nama/Damara and Khoekhoegowap, with about 120,000 speakers mostly in Namibia (click here--> for an audio clip of Nama). A few Nama speakers are found in Botswana, and there is another small pocket in the Richtersveld in South Africa. The abandoned term Hottentot has been applied to the Cape Khoekhoe. Through differences in vocabulary and details of grammatical structure, the Khoekhoe languages reveal a considerable period of independent linguistic development in the Khoe group, but they share certain phonetic features with all the Southern African Khoisan languages. These involve the use of four core clicks, with certain common accompanying articulations, and the rules governing the phonetic shape of words, where clicks are restricted to being the first consonant only.