Gǀui or Gǀwi (pronounced /ˈɡwiː/ GWEE in English, and also spelled ǀGwi, ǀ᪶Ui, Dcui, Gcwi, or Cgui) is a Khoe dialect of Botswana with 2,500 speakers (2004 Cook).
Gǀui, ǂʼAmkoe, and Taa form the core of the Kalahari Basin sprachbund, and share a number of characteristic features, including extremely large consonant inventories.
Many words which previously began with clicks (as shown by cognates in related languages) have lost them over the past few centuries in Gǀui.
Nonetheless, Gǀui has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Khoe language.
Miller (2011), in a comparative study with other languages, interprets Nakagawa's description as follows.
They developed from glottalized nasal clicks before pharyngealized vowels, perhaps under ǂʼAmkoe influence: Most words are of the form CV, CVV, CVCV, CVN, where C stands for a consonant, V for a vowel, and N for a nasal consonant /m, n/.
In CVCV words, only a limited set of consonants /b m ɾ n j w/ may occur in medial position (the second syllable).
Of these, two /n, ɾ/ may not occur at the beginning of a word, and due to restrictions with nasal vowels may be argued to be allophonic.
The palatals, which are unique among Khoisan languages to Gǁana-Gǀui, derive historically from the alveolars before non-pharyngealized vowels.
Only the five modal vowels /a e i o u/ occur in monomoraic (CV or V) roots, which except for the noun χò 'thing, place, case' are all grammatical morphemes.
Gǀui may be analyzed as having two abstract phonemic tones, plus breathy voice, which is covered here rather than under vowels.