Orthography
There have been several orthographies used for Nama. A Khoekhoegowab dictionary (Haacke 2000) uses the modern standard.
In standard orthography, the consonants b d g are used for words with one of the lower tone melodies and p t k for one of the higher tone melodies. W is only used between vowels, though it may be replaced with b or p according to melody. Overt tone marking is otherwise generally omitted.
| Orthography | Transcription | Melody | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| gao | /kȁó/ | low rising | 'rule' |
| kao | /kàő/ | high rising | 'be dumbfounded' |
| ǀhubu (or ǀhuwu) | /ǀʰȕwú/ | low rising | 'to stop hurting' |
| ǀhupu (or ǀhuwu) | /ǀʰùwű/ | high rising | 'to get out of breath' |
Nasal vowels are written with a circumflex. All nasal vowels are long, as in hû /hũ̀ṹ/ 'seven'. Long (double) vowels are otherwise written with a macron, as in ā /ʔàa̋/ 'to cry, weep'; these constitute two moras (two tone-bearing units).
Glottal stop is not written at the beginning of a word, where it is predictable but is transcribed with a hyphen in compound words, such as gao-aob /kȁòʔòȁp/ 'chief'.
Read more about this topic: Khoekhoe Language