An investigation into the phonemic status of vowel length and tone in Khoekhoegowab

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that Khoekhoegowab, which represents the Damara, Nama and Haiǁom dialects in Namibia, has phonemic long and short vowel phonemes. The purpose of this paper thus is to closely examine the phonemic status of the vowels to establish whether or not Khoekhoegowab does have long and short vowel phonemes. The paper's premise is the phonetic perception in the production of vowels. Lengthening occurs when a vowel is realised in a continuous manner without the possibility of syllabifying it. The paper followed a mixed research design where data was drawn from a few available sources such as Haacke and Eiseb (2002) and Khoekhoegowab Orthography (2003). This was complemented by data from a few key informants who are mother-tongue speakers of Khoekhoegowab.  With the aid of PRAAT software, the study argues that rather than length, tone is the phonemic feature in Khoekhoegowab; it distinguishes meaning in different Khoekhoegowab words. Over the years, because the high and low tones interfered with how speakers perceive the sounds, vowel length has not been sufficiently scrutinised.