The Khoikhoi, also known by the offensive epithet Hottentots, were an indigenous Southwest African culture dating to the 5th century A.D. The name Hottentot, which literally means "stutterer" in Dutch, was given by Dutch settlers to describe the halting, clicking sound of the Khoikhoi language. The culture of these people was largely dispersed by Dutch colonization beginning in the late 17th century. As the name Hottentot dehumanized the Khoikhoi people, so did Western depictions such as the one at left which shows them as nearly featureless and genderless humans. The drawing at bottom left also dehumanizes in its homogenous rendering of a Hottentot man and women who differ only in the exaggerated girth of the woman's hips.