Khoisan

Syllables: Khoi·san/ˈkɔɪsɑːn/US/ˈkɔɪˌsɑn/

Khoisan proper noun: the group of languages associated with the Khoisan including the Khoi, Kx'a and Tuu families, sometimes to the inclusion of the Hadza and Sandawe language isolates of Tanzania.

Proper noun

Khoisan

The group of languages associated with the Khoisan including the Khoi, Kx'a and Tuu families, sometimes to the inclusion of the Hadza and Sandawe language isolates of Tanzania.

Noun

Khoisan (plural Khoisans or Khoisan)

A member of the group of non-Bantu Southern African indigenous people: the Khoi or San people.

Forms of Khoisan

Proper noun
alternative form	Khoi-San
Noun
plural	Khoisans
plural	Khoisan

Origin of Khoisan

From Khoi + San, from the pastoral Khoi tribe (formerly also called Hottentots) and the hunter-gatherer San (also known as Bushmen). Coined by Isaac Schapera in 1930, in linguistic usage since the 1950s (following Joseph Greenberg, Studies in African Linguistic Classification, 1955).

Questions about Khoisan

What does Khoisan mean?: Khoisan means the group of languages associated with the Khoisan including the Khoi, Kx'a and Tuu families, sometimes to the inclusion of the Hadza and Sandawe language isolates of Tanzania.
What part of speech is Khoisan?: Khoisan can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce Khoisan?: Khoisan is pronounced /ˈkɔɪsɑːn/ (UK).

Words near Khoisan in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Khoisan (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Khoisan.wav.

Cite this entry: “Khoisan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/khoisan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.