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Concept
San people
Summary
The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. They speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of the Khoe, Tuu and Kxʼa language families, and are only a 'people' in contrast to pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe and descendants of more recent waves of immigration such as the Bantu, Europeans and Asians.
In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San, making it the country with the highest proportion of San people at 2.8%.
In Khoekhoegowab, the term "San" has a long vowel and is spelled Sān. It is an exonym with the meaning of "foragers" and is used in a derogatory manner to describe nomadic foraging people. Based on observation of lifestyle, this term has been applied to speakers of three distinct language families living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia, extending up into southern Angola; central peoples of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the southern people in the central Kalahari towards the Molopo River, who are the last remnant of the previously extensive indigenous peoples of southern Africa.
The designations "Bushmen" and "San" are both exonyms. The San have no collective word for themselves in their own languages. "San" is a derogatory word originally used by the pastoralist Khoekhoe.
The San refer to themselves as their individual nations, such as ǃKung (also spelled ǃXuun, including the Juǀʼhoansi), ǀXam, Nǁnǂe (part of the ǂKhomani), Kxoe (Khwe and ǁAni), Haiǁom, Ncoakhoe, Tshuwau, Gǁana and Gǀui (ǀGwi), etc.. Representatives of San peoples in 2003 stated their preference for the use of such individual group names where possible over the use of the collective term San.
"Bushmen" is the older cover term, but "San" had been widely adopted in the West by the late 1990s.
Official source
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