The Lower Nossob varieties of Tuu

North of the confluence of the Nossob, Auob, and Molopo Rivers in the Kalahari, several speech varieties of San groups have been attested, if only poorly, by linguistic data, notably ǀ’Auni and (Ku)ǀHaasi. Their relationship to the Tuu family (earlier referred to as ‘Southern Khoisan’) and their closer affiliation with each other, allowing one to subsume them under the term ‘Lower Nossob’, are so far undisputed. However, their exact position within Tuu is equivocal. While most early scholars have assigned them to the !Ui branch of Tuu, there are robust linguistic and sociolinguistic indications that a closer genealogical relation to the Taa group of Tuu is more probable. This genealogical affiliation has been partly obscured by subsequent language contact with the northernmost !Ui language complex Nǁng.