Editing Khwe language (section)

== Vocabulary ==
In opposition to the postulated [[linguistic universal]] regarding the primacy of the visual domain in the hierarchy of the verbs of perception,<ref>{{Cite book|title = The verbs of perception: a typological study|last = Viberg|first = Ake|publisher = de Gruyter|year = 2001|location = Berlin/New York|pages = 1294–1309|work = Language Typology and Language Universals: An International Handbook|editor-last = Haspelmath|editor-first = M. |display-editors=etal }}</ref> Khwe's most widely applied verb of perception is ''ǁám̀'', 'taste, smell, touch'.<ref name=":4" /> Khwe has three verbs of perception, the other two being ''mṹũ'' 'see', and ''kóḿ'' 'hear', but ''ǁám̀'', which is semantically rooted in oral perception, is used to convey holistic modes of sensory perception.<ref name=":4" />

The Khwe term ''xǀóa'' functions both as a verb 'to be little, few, some' and as an alternative way of expressing the quantity 'three'. This term is unique in its ambiguity among numeral terms used by African hunter-gatherer subsistence communities.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = On numeral complexity in hunter-gatherer languages|journal = Linguistic Typology|volume = 16|issue = 1|doi = 10.1515/lity-2012-0002|first1 = Patience|last1 = Epps|first2 = Claire|last2 = Bowern|first3 = Cynthia A.|last3 = Hansen|first4 = Jane H.|last4 = Hill|first5 = Jason|last5 = Zentz|year = 2012|s2cid = 199664616|hdl = 1885/61320|hdl-access = free}}</ref>

Khwe has a large number of loan words from [[Afrikaans]].<ref name=":5" />