Continent	Ling-Family	Dwelling	Climate	Subsistence	Formal Schooling
Hai||om	Africa	Koisan	Rural	Desert	Hunter-Gatherer	Yes
Jahai	Asia	Mon-Khmer	Rural	Tropical	Hunter-Gatherer	No
German	Europe	Indo-European	Urban	Temperate	Industrial	Yes

≠Akhoe Hai||om

The ≠Akhoe Hai||om are a group of hunter-gatherers living in the savannah of Northern Namibia, roughly between the Omuramba Owambo river and the Angolan border. Their language, ≠Akhoe Hai||om, is part of the Khoekhoe cluster within the Khoisan language family. In comparison with the majority of people living in southern Africa, most speakers of ≠Akhoe Hai||om have maintained an unusual cultural profile, including healing trance dances, hunting magic, a lunar calendar and the use of a landscape-term system for spatial orientation. As with all people considered to be “San” or “Bushmen”, the ≠Akhoe Hai||om are politically and economically marginalized and their language has a low reputation. Their traditional hunting and gathering land has been under threat for the last 60 years at least and has increasingly been claimed by Bantu people or white Africans as farmland. As a result, the nomadic lifestyle of the ≠Akhoe Hai||om is under serious threat and many ≠Akhoe Hai||om now find a living as farmhands on farms in their former homeland.

Jahai

The Jahai belong to a cluster of foraging populations in the Malay Peninsula, generically referred to as Semang. The Jahai inhabit mountainous regions of the tropical rainforests of the interior of the Malay Peninsula. They, like all Semang, are sometimes referred to as ‘Negritos’ due to their physical characteristics, and possibly they are descendants of the aboriginal population of Southeast Asia. They are traditionally mobile foragers subsisting on hunting, fishing, gathering, collecting and trading of rainforest products, as well as temporary wage-labour. Occasionally they do slash-and-burn agriculture. A Jahai group consists of 15-50 individuals. Temporary camps of lean-tos or huts are inhabited for periods of a few days to several weeks or even months, depending on the sustenance circumstances. The Jahai are one of the few groups amongst the Semang that still pursue a fully mobile existence.

Germans

Germany is a post-industrial Western-European nation with a mixed rural and urban lifestyle. Germans inhabit a densely populated landscape. In this project, German children will be recruited in kindergartens in Leipzig, a city with approximately 500.000 inhabitants. Children in these kindergartens between the age of 6 months and 6 years come from mixed socio-economic backgrounds and speak German as a first language.