Southern Ghanzi, northern Kgalagadi, western Southern and western Kweneng districts in Botswana; southern Omaheke and northeastern Hardap regions in Namibia.
Native speakers
4,200 (date missing)
Language family
Language codes
ISO 639-3
nmn
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Taa, also known as !Xoon or ǃXóõ, is a Khoisan language known for its large number of phonemes. As of 2002, it was spoken by about 4,200 people worldwide. These are mainly in Botswana (approximately 4,000 people), but some are in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake) or ‘N|ohan (pl. N|umde).
Contents
Relatives
Until the rediscovery of a few elderly speakers of Nǁng in the 1990s, Taa was thought to be the last surviving member of the Tuu language family.
There is much confusion with these names. For example, ǀʼAuni (which is now generally considered part of a separate language, Lower Nossob) is also the name of a dialect of Nǁng, in the ǃKwi family; and Nguen, Nǀu-san are alternate names of that language. ǃKwi may also be a ǃKwi dialect rather than a dialect of Taa. Kakia may be a separate language in the Taa family, and Xatia etc may be variants of that name. Nonetheless, there is dialectal variation in Taa, which might be better described as a dialect continuum than as a single language.
Dialects
Taa dialects fall into two rather divergent groups:
Traill worked with East ǃXoon, and the DoBeS project is working with ’N|ohan and West ǃXoon. Botswanan dialects are not well described, though a survey was scheduled to partially remedy that in 2007.
Phonology
Taa has at least 58 consonants, 31 vowels, and four tones (Traill 1985, 1994 on East ǃXoon), or at least 87 consonants, 20 vowels, and two tones (DoBeS 2008 on West ǃXoon), by many counts the most of any known language. These include 20 (Traill) or 43 (DoBeS) click consonants and several vowel phonations, though opinions vary as to which of the 130 (Traill) or 164 (DoBeS) consonant sounds are single segments and which are consonant clusters.
Tones
Vowels
East ǃXoon (Traill)
Traill describes the phonations of the East ǃXoon dialect as plain, murmured, or glottalized. [a o u] may also be both glottalized and murmured, as well as pharyngealized or strident. [a u] may be both pharyngealized and glottalized, for 26 vowels not counting nasalization or length.
Murmured vowels after plain consonants contrast with plain vowels after aspirated consonants, and likewise glottalized vowels with ejective consonants, so these are phonations of the vowels and not assimilation with consonant phonation.
West ǃXoon (DoBeS)
DoBeS describes the phonations of the West ǃXoon dialect as plain, a e i o u; nasalized, an en in on un; epiglottalized or pharyngealized, aq eq iq oq uq; strident, aqh eqh iqh oqh uqh; and glottalized or ‘tense’, a’ e’ i’ o’ u’.
Consonants
Taa is unusual in allowing mixed voicing in its consonants. These have been called «prevoiced», but they actually appear to be consonant clusters. When homorganic, as in [dt], such clusters are listed in the chart below.
Taa consonants are complex, and it is not clear how much of the difference between the dialects is real and how much is an artifact of analysis.
East ǃXoon (Traill)
Marginal or rare consonants are in parentheses. Asterisks mark consonants added in 1994, which are likely also marginal or rare.
East ǃXoon dialect (Traill 1985, 1994): Non-click consonants
non-click consonants
Labial
Dental
Alveolar
Palatal
Velar
corresponding clicks?
Uvular
corresponding clicks?
Glottal
Oral stop
voiced
b
ɴɢǃ etc.
tenuis
p *
t
ts
k
kǃ etc.
q
qǃ etc.
ʔ
aspirated
pʰ *
tʰ
tsʰ
kʰ
kǃʰ etc.
qʰ
ejective
tʼ *
tsʼ
kʼ *, kxʼ
kǃʼqʼ etc.
(qʼ)
qǃʼ etc.
aspirated cluster
dtʰ
dtsʰ
ɡkʰ *
ɡǃh etc.
ɢqʰ
The nasal [ɲ] only occurs between vowels, and [ŋ] only word finally (and then only in some dialects), so these may be allophones.
Taa has 83 click sounds. Given the intricate clusters seen in the non-click consonants, it is not surprising that many of the Taa clicks should be analyzed as clusters. However, while some are clearly simplex and some clearly complex, there is debate over others.
There are five click releases: bilabial, dental, lateral, alveolar, and palatal. There are seventeen accompaniments, both velar and uvular. These are perfectly normal consonants in Taa, and indeed are preferred over non-clicks in word-initial position.
All nasal clicks have twin airstreams, since the air passing through the nose bypasses the tongue. Usually this is pulmonic egressive. However, the ↓ŋ̊ʰ series in Taa is characterized by pulmonic ingressive nasal airflow. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:268) state that «This ǃXóõ click is probably unique among the sounds of the world’s languages that, even in the middle of a sentence, it may have ingressive pulmonic airflow.»
West ǃXoon (DoBeS)
These are written in the practical orthography. Marginal consonants are not marked.
West ǃXoon dialect (DoBeS 2008): Consonants other than clicks
non-click consonants
labial
alveolar
palatal
velar
uvular
clicks (5)
glottal
oral stop
voiced
b
d
dz
g
gq
gǃ etc.
tenuis
p
t
ts
k
q
kǃ etc.
’
aspirated
ph
th
tsh
kh
qh
ǃh etc.
ejective
p’
t’
ts’
k’
q’
qx’
ǃ’ etc.
voiced aspirated (cluster?)
bh
dh
dzh
gh
gqh
gǃh etc.
voiced ejective (cluster?)
dz’
g’
gq’
gqx’
gǃ’ etc.
fricative
voiceless
f
s
x
h
nasal
voiced
m
n
nn
ny
ng
nǃ etc.
voiceless
nhǃ etc.
glottalized
’m
’n
‘nǃ etc.
approximant
w?
l
y
«intermittent»
r
Clusters in x are tx, dx, tsx, dzx; clusters in qx’ are pqx’, tqx’, dqx’, tsqx’, dzqx’.
The identification of voiceless/voiced pairs of click clusters is aided by the morphology of West ǃXoon, where a significant number of nouns have a voiceless first consonant in the singular and a voiced first consonant in the plural. The rows of clicks below are all arranged in voiceless-voiced pairs, except for the pre-glottalized nasal clicks, which don’t have a voiceless counterpart.
The expectation, from the morphology of ǃXoon, for voiceless-voiced pairs of click clusters led to the discovery of several click accompaniments not distinguished by Traill. (This morphology appears to be more pervasive in West ǃXoon than in the East ǃXoon dialect that Traill worked on.) Thus for Trail’s ǂqh, the DoBeS team distinguishes two phonemes, ǂqh and ǂh, and for Traill’s ǂ’, they have ǂ» and ǂ’. It also lead to the discovery of voiced click types which may not exist in East ǃXoon at all, namely nǂ», nǂhh, gǂ’, and gǂq’.
Phonotactics
The Taa syllable structure, as described by DoBes, may be one of the following:
where C is a consonant, V is a vowel, and N is a nasal consonant. There is a very limited number of consonants which can occur in the second (C2) position and only certain vowel sequences (VV and V…V) occur. The possible consonant clusters (CC) is covered above; C2 may be [b
Grammar
Taa is a subject–verb–object language with serial verbs and inflecting prepositions. Genitives, adjectives, relative clauses, and numbers come after the nouns they apply to. Reduplication is used to form causatives. There are seven nominal agreement classes in two tone groups which combine for nine or more grammatical genders. Agreement occurs on pronouns, transitive verbs (with the object), adjectives, prepositions, and some «particles».
Anthony Traill did extensive research concerning the language and its various aspects. He even wrote a dictionary of the Taa language, named A ǃXóõ Dictionary, as well as a book on the phonetics of the language.
Example phrases
These example phrases are from the Eastern ǃXóõ dialect and were compiled by Anthony Traill.