Editing Kwadi language (section)

{{Short description|Extinct Khoisan language of Angola}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Kwadi
| nativename       = ǃKwaǀtse
| states           = [[Angola]]
| extinct          = 1960s-80s
| familycolor      = Khoisan
| fam1             = [[Khoe–Kwadi languages|Khoe–Kwadi]]<ref name="phonology"/><ref>{{glottolog|khoe1240|Khoe–Kwadi}}</ref>
| iso3             = kwz
| glotto           = kwad1244
| glottorefname    = Kwadi
| ethnicity        = Kwadi
| dia1             = Zorotua
}}

'''Kwadi''' {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|w|ɑː|d|i}} is an extinct "[[click language]]" once spoken in the southwest corner of [[Angola]]. It became [[extinct language|extinct]] around 1960. There were only fifty Kwadi in the 1950s, of whom only 4–5 were competent speakers of the language. Three partial speakers were known in 1965, but in 1981 no speakers could be found. Salvage work was carried out 2014 with two remembers who had acquired the language from an old speaker while they were children.<ref name=lost>Anne-Maria Fehn & Jorge Rocha (2023) Lost in translation: A historical-comparative reconstruction of Proto-Khoe-Kwadi based on archival data. ''Diachronica'' 40:5, p. 609&ndash;665.</ref>

Although Kwadi is poorly attested, there is enough data to show that it is a divergent member of the [[Khoe languages|Khoe family]], or perhaps cognate with the Khoe languages in a [[Khoe–Kwadi languages|Khoe–Kwadi]] family. It preserved elements of proto-Khoe that were lost in the western Khoe languages under the influence of [[Kxʼa languages]] in Botswana,<ref>{{cite conference |title=Changing profile when encroaching on hunter-gatherer territory?: towards a history of the Khoe–Kwadi family in southern Africa |first=Tom |last=Güldemann |conference=Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherer populations in global perspective |publisher=Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology |date=August 2006}}</ref> and other elements that were lost in the eastern Khoe languages.<ref name="phonology"/>

The Kwadi people, called ''Kwepe'' (''Cuepe'') by the Bantu, appear to have been a remnant population of southwestern African [[hunter-gatherer]]s, otherwise only represented by the [[Cimba people|Cimba]], [[Kwisi people|Kwisi]], and the [[Damara people|Damara]], who adopted the [[Khoekhoe language]]. Like the Kwisi they were fishermen, on the lower reaches of the [[Coroca River]].<ref name=Blench>{{cite book |first=Blench |last=Roger |year=1999 |chapter=Are the African Pygmies an Ethnographic Fiction? |pages=41–60 |editor-last1=Biesbrouck |editor-last2=Elders |editor-last3=Rossel |title=Challenging Elusiveness: Central African Hunter-Gatherers in a Multidisciplinary Perspective |location=Leiden |url=http://www.rogerblench.info/Anthropology%20data/Text/Pygmies%20an%20ethnographic%20fiction.pdf |access-date=2011-10-26 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120126111442/http://www.rogerblench.info/Anthropology%20data/Text/Pygmies%20an%20ethnographic%20fiction.pdf |archive-date=2012-01-26 }}</ref>

Kwadi was alternatively known by varieties of the words ''Koroka'' (''Ba-koroka, Curoca, Ma-koroko, Mu-coroca'') and ''Cuanhoca''.
''Zorotua'', or ''Vasorontu'', was apparently a dialect.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kwadi: Zorotua language |url=https://globalrecordings.net/en/language/12597 |access-date=2024-06-22 |website=globalrecordings.net |language=en}}</ref>