An extinct Southern
Khoisan hunter-gatherer people of
South Africa, and their language. It was chosen as the language in which to devise the new (post-apartheid) national
motto, which is
!Ke e: /xarra //ke, meaning "
different people
unite", placed under the new
coat of arms.
They were in the south-western Karoo region of South Africa, and was studied by the linguist Wilhelm Bleek from 1870 to 1875, and upon his death then the work was continued by his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd and his daughter Dorothea Bleek. This work saved considerable oral literature of the San (Bushmen as they were then known).
See http://www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/arch/bushman.htm for a diorama in a South African museum representing a /Xam encampment, with useful discussion.
I originally noded this as !Xam, but references on the Web suggest the language name is correctly /Xam, with a different click. See http://ling.cornell.edu/khoisan/xam.htm for a brief grammar and a story.