Khoemana

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Khoe language of South Africa

title: "Khoemana" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["khoe-languages", "griqua-people", "languages-of-south-africa", "languages-of-namibia", "endangered-languages-of-africa"] description: "Khoe language of South Africa" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoemana" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Khoe language of South Africa ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Khoemana
altname	Griqua, Korana, ǃOra, Kora
nativename	ǃOrakobab
states	South Africa, Namibia
ethnicity	Griqua people
speakers	Korana (kqz): 6
date	2008
ref
speakers2	Xiri (xii): 187
familycolor	Khoisan
fam1	Khoe–Kwadi
fam2	Khoe
fam3	Khoekhoe
lc1	kqz
ld1	Korana
lc2	xii
ld2	Xiri
glotto	sout3214
glottorefname	South Khoekhoe
notice	IPA
::

ǃOrakobab, or Khoemana, also known as Korana, ǃOra, or Griqua, is a moribund Khoe language of South Africa.

Names

"Khoemana" (from khoe 'person' + mana 'language') is more commonly known as either Korana (also ǃOrakobab, ǃOra, Kora, Koraqua) or Griqua (also Gri , Xri, Xiri, Xirikwa). The name 'Korana' reflects the endonym ǃOra or ǃGora , referring to the ǃOra people. Sometimes ǃOra is also known as Cape Khoe or Cape Hottentot, though the latter has become considered derogatory. The various names are often treated as different languages (called South Khoekhoe when taken together), but they do not correspond to any actual dialect distinctions, and speakers may use "Korana" and "Griqua" interchangeably. Both names are also used more broadly, for example for the Griqua people. There exist (or existed) several dialects of Khoemana, but the details are unknown.

Phonology

ǃOrakobab (Khoemana) is closely related to Khoekhoe, and the sound systems are broadly similar. The strongly aspirated Khoekhoe affricates are simply aspirated plosives in ǃOrakobab. However, ǃOrakobab has an ejective velar affricate, , which is not found in Khoekhoe, and a corresponding series of clicks, . Beach (1938) reported that the Khoekhoe of the time had a velar lateral ejective affricate, , a common realisation or allophone of in languages with clicks, and it might be expected that this is true for ǃOrakobab as well. In addition, about half of all lexical words in ǃOrakobab began with a click, compared to a quarter in Khoekhoe.

::data[format=table title="ǃOrakobab vowels"] | Front | Central | Back | oral || nasal | oral | oral || nasal | Close | Mid | Open | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::

In Korana, [oe] and [oa] can be pronounced as [we] and [wa].

::data[format=table title="ǃOrakobab non-click consonants"]

Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal	Nasal	Plosive	voiceless	aspirated	voiced	Affricate ejective	Fricative	Trill







::

The phoneme [k] can be realized as /c/ before [e] or [i].
An intervocalic [p] and [b] are sometimes realized as /β/.
[s] is stated to be alveolar-postalveolar when not followed by a close front vowel [i], [ĩ], or [e].
The aspirated phoneme [tʰ] is realized as an affricate sound /ts/ when followed by a close front vowel [i], [ĩ], or [e].
The aspirated sound [kʰ] can sometimes be realized as [kx]. Some Griqua speakers may pronounce [kʰ] as [kʼ].
The [tsʼ] sound only seldom occurs.
[m] and [n] can occur syllabically as [m̩] and [n̩].
The trilled [r] can also be realized as a flapped [ɾ] in some speech.
Voicing can be very weak in Khoemana in casual speech, so voiced plosives can be hard to distinguish from voiceless plosives.

::data[format=table title="ǃOrakobab clicks"] | dental | alveolar | lateral | palatal | voiceless | nasal | glottalized | aspirated | voiced | aspirated k | velar affricate | velar ejective affricate | velar fricative | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::

There are four tones in ǃOrakobab: high (notated with an acute accent), rising (notated with a caron), mid (no accent), and falling (notated with a circumflex).

Population

Reports as to the number of ǃOrakobab speakers are contradictory, but it is clear that it is nearly extinct. It was thought to be extinct until the discovery of four elderly speakers around Bloemfontein and Kimberley. A 2009 report by Don Killian of the University of Helsinki estimated that there were less than 30 speakers at the time. The discrepancies could be because the language has multiple dialects and goes by several names, with scholars not always referring to the same population. The loss of this endangered language would have a significant impact on the heritage and culture of ǃOrakobab speakers.

Attestation

Robust ǃOrakobab (before more recent language attrition) is principally recorded in an 1879 notebook by Lucy Lloyd, which contains five short stories; some additional work was done in Ponelis (1975). As of 2009, the EuroBABEL project is searching for remaining speakers.

History

The people and their language first began to attract scholarly attention in the 1660s, coinciding with Dutch colonial efforts in the Cape of Good Hope and the resulting armed conflicts.

Notes

References

"Khoemana". [[UNESCO]].
{{e25. xii
Killian, D. [https://helda.helsinki.fi//bitstream/handle/10138/229407/Khoemana_and_the_Griqua.pdf ''Khoemana and the Griqua'']
D. Beach, 1938. ''The Phonetics of the Hottentot Language''. Cambridge.
[[Menan Du Plessis. Du Plessis, Menan]] (2011) "Collection of sound files for inclusion in a dictionary of Korana and eventual integration with a corpus of heritage texts"
"Did you know Korana is critically endangered?".
Brenzinger, Matthias. (2007). "Language Endangerment in Southern and Eastern Africa".
Ponelis, F. A. (1975). "ǃOra Clicks: Problems and Speculations." ''Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic Studies,'' pp 51–60. ed. Anthony Traill. Communications from the African Studies Institute, no 2. University of the Witwatersrand. Johannesburg.

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