!Kung

1. A member of a San people of eastern Namibia and western Botswana.

2. The Khoisan language of the !Kung.

Usage Note: The orthographically unusual word !Kung refers to a language spoken by a group of San in southern Africa. This language and its relatives employ a series of consonants called clicks that are only rarely found outside of this area of Africa. In English, clicks are found only in a few interjections, such as tsk-tsk, which is technically a repeated alveolar click in which the front end of the tongue is pressed up against the alveolar ridge behind the teeth. The exclamation point in !Kung symbolizes a similar click, but with the front part of the blade of the tongue pressed against the palate close to the alveolar ridge. It is thus called a postalveolar click.