The Tuu or Ta’a-!Kwi (Ta’a-!ui, Ui-Taa, Kwi) languages are a language family consisting of two transparently related language clusters spoken in Botswana and South Africa. The name Tuu comes from a word for person common to both branches of the family. The Tuu languages form in turn one branch of a proposed Khoisan language family, and are called Southern Khoisan in that scenario. However, no convincing evidence has ever been produced for this classification. Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... This is a list of Khoisan languages, which are indigenous to southern Africa. ...

The !Kwi branch of South Africa is moribund, with only one language remaining, N/uu, and that with only a dozen elderly speakers. !Kwi languages were once widespread across South Africa; the most famous, /Xam, was the source of the modern national motto of that nation, !ke eː ǀxarra ǁke. A language is usually considered moribund (literally, dying) when it is no longer the language of the community, and is no longer learned by children, so that without massive intervention it will likely become extinct when the last of its current speakers dies. ... N/u is a Khoisan language spoken by the Khomani people in South Africa. ... /Xam is an extinct Khoisan language of South Africa, part of the !Kwi language group. ... Here is a list of state mottos for countries and their subdivisions around the world. ...

The Ta’a branch of Botswana is more robust, though it also has one surviving language, !Xóõ, with 4200 speakers. !Xóõ is a Khoisan language with a very large number of phonemes, the most of any known language. ...

The family was once thought to include the (East) ‡Hõã language, but this may instead be related to the Juu family and is best considered unclassified for now. ‡Hõã or ‡Hoan, a variant of the ethnonym ‡Qhôã, is an unclassified Khoisan language of Botswana. ... The Ju or Zhu languages, actually a dialect continuum, form a branch of the hypothetical Khoisan language family. ...

The Tuu languages, along with ‡Hõã, are known for being the only languages in the world to have bilabial clicks as distinctive speech sounds, apart from the extinct ritual jargon Damin of northern Australia. They also have some of the most complex inventories of both consonants and vowels in the world, as well as tone. The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants found only in the Southern Khoisan family, the ‡Hõã language of Botswana, and the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. ... A secret language spoken in the Gulf of Carpentaria used in mens initiation rites. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ...

Because many of the Tuu languages became extinct with little record, there is considerable confusion as to which of their many names represented separate languages or even dialects. See List of Khoisan languages for some possibilities. This is a list of Khoisan languages, which are indigenous to southern Africa. ...