ǃXoon (ǃXóõ) is an ethnonym used at opposite ends of the Taa-speaking area, but not by Taa speakers in between.
[6] Taa shares a number of characteristic features with West ǂʼAmkoe and Gǀui, which together are considered part of the Kalahari Basin sprachbund.
[7] 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.
Traill (1974), for example, spent two chapters of his Compleat Guide to the Koon [sic] disentangling names and dialects.
[9] The name ǃXoon (more precisely ǃXóõ) is only used at Aminius Reserve in Namibia, around Lone Tree where Traill primarily worked, and at Dzutshwa (Botswana).
Bleek's Nǀuǁʼen dialect[note 1] has been spelled ǀNuǁen, ǀNuǁe꞉n, Ngǀuǁen, Nguen, Nǀhuǁéi, ŋǀuǁẽin, ŋǀuǁẽi, ŋǀuǁen, ǀuǁen.
It has also been called by the ambiguous Khoekhoe term Nǀusan (Nǀu-san, Nǀūsā, Nǀuusaa, Nǀhusi), sometimes rendered Nusan or Noosan, which has been used for other languages in the area.
This is a Tswana name, variously rendered Tshasi, Tshase, Tʃase, Tsase, Sasi, and Sase.
Westphal (1971) adopted the word tâa "person" as the name for the Southern Khoisan language family, which is now called Tuu.
Anthony Traill describes four tones for the East ǃXoon dialect: high [á], mid [ā], low [à], and mid-falling [â].
By analyzing each base as bimoraic, Traill's four tones are mapped onto [áá], [àá], [àà], and [áà].
Unlike Traill, Naumann does not find a four-way contrast on monomoraic grammatical forms in Eastern ǃXoõ data.
The other vowel quality sequences—better known as diphthongs—disregarding the added complexity of phonation, are [ai, ae, ao, au, oi, oe, oa, ou, ui, ue, ua].
A long, strident nasalized o with low tone is written ⟨òqhõ⟩, since Traill analyzes stridency as phonemically pharyngealized murmur.
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', aʼ eʼ iʼ oʼ uʼ.
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.
The DoBeS project takes Traill's cluster analysis to mean that only the twenty tenuis, voiced, nasal, and voiceless nasal clicks are basic, with the rest being clusters of the tenuis and voiced clicks with x, kxʼ, q, ɢ, qʰ, ɢqʰ, qʼ, ʔ, h and either mˀ or nˀ.
Traill's account of East ǃXoon leaves for voiceless series of clicks without equivalents with a voiced lead.
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."
The expectation, from the morphology of ǃXoon, for voiceless-voiced pairs of click clusters led to the discovery of several series not distinguished by Traill.
These are voiced click types which may not exist in East ǃXoon at all, namely nꞰʼʼ, nꞰhh, gꞰʼ, and gꞰqʼ.
Agreement occurs on pronouns, transitive verbs (with the object), adjectives, prepositions, and some particles.
[16] The phrases from Eastern ǃXóõ were compiled by Anthony Traill: ǃnˤù.ṵHare.14ì1PROàPSTǁʼà-betake:S-3ǃù.mEland.3ʘàachild:34sâathitherǃnˤù.ṵ ì à ǁʼà-be ǃù.m ʘàa sâaHare.14 1PRO PST take:S-3 Eland.3 child:34 thither"As for Hare, she took Eland's child away.
"ǃqháa̰givekūMPO:4PROǂnûmtwoǁɢˤûlitêgenital:22-PǀèASS:3dtxóʔlustench:3ǀnàeDAT:3PROǂʼáCOM:2sˤàa̰fat:22ǃqháa̰ kū ǂnûm ǁɢˤûlitê ǀè dtxóʔlu ǀnàe ǂʼá sˤàa̰give MPO:4PRO two genital:22-P ASS:3 stench:3 DAT:3PRO COM:2 fat:22"Give them their stinking genitals with the fat!