View source for Khoikhoi

[[Khoikhoi]] is the collective name for the hunter-gatherer people of '''[[Khoikhoi]]''' (or '''[[Khoi-Khoi]]''') descent. 

In the mid 17th century the name '''[[Hottentot]]''' was given to any member (or descendent) of the Southern African branch of '''[[Khoikhoi]]''' by the [[Dutch]] settlers, in immitation of the sounds they heard in the [[Khoekhoe]] languages spoken by the [[Khoikhoi]]. 

The name [[Khoikhoi]] was later contracted to the more familiar, [[Khoi]], used today - also used in the combination [[Khoi-San]] when referring to the ''all'' original inhabitants of Southern Africa - i.e. the [[San]] and the [[Khoikhoi]].  (The former group was at one time denigratingly referred to as  [[Bushmen]] (or [[Bosjesmannen]] in [[Dutch]] and [[Boesmans]] in [[Afrikaans]]) and the [[Khoikhoi]] again as [[Hottentots]] ([[Hottentotte]] in [[Dutch]] or [[Afrikaans]]).   

This name was soon contracted to "[[Hotnot]]" in the spoken language by [[Dutch]]-, and later   [[Afrikaans]]-speaking people in the Cape. In the 19th and 20th centuries, as the numbers of "pure"  "Hottentots" dwindled, the term was expanded to refer to all people of mixed race heritage and gradually was also used denigratingly (particularly in the contracted form of "[[hotnots]]") to imply inferiority and lack of culture and morals, and was used in this way by a number of earlier writers to refer to ''any'' uncivilized, even dangerously unstable person(or persons). 

As the use dwindled it was generally replaced as a general term by [[coloured]]. 

By the 1980’s the term was seen as highly derogatory and replaced by the more "correct" [[Khoi]] or '''[[/Xhoi]]''' (the / indicating a click sound). However by 2000 this had been challenged in its turn, with the etymology of "[[Hottentot]]" being reappraised by some descendants of the origial descendents of the [[Khoikhoi]].  

'''See also [[Coloured]] and [[Griqua]].'''

Though the term is of course found in numerous books, novels, poems and plays from the 18th to the 20th century, a number of them classic works, it is today seen as politically incorrect and features among the many [[proscribed racial terms]] formerly found in South Africa. 



== Sources ==


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoikhoi