Korana /kɒˈrɑːnə/, or ǃOra /ˈkɔərə/, is a moribund Khoe language of South Africa. An ethnic Korana population (also called Griqua) of 10,000 live in South Africa and perhaps Botswana, with perhaps half a dozen elderly speakers as of 2008.
Korana is related to Khoekhoe, and the sound systems are broadly similar. The strongly aspirated Khoekhoe affricates are simply aspirated plosives in Korana. However, Korana has an ejective velar affricate, /kxʼ/, which is not found in Khoekhoe, and a corresponding series of clicks, /ǀ͡χʼ ǁ͡χʼ ǃ͡χʼ ǂ͡χʼ/. Beach (1938) reported that the Khoehkoe of the time had a velar lateral ejective affricate, a common realization or allophone of /kxʼ/ in languages with clicks, and it might be expected that this is true for Korana as well. In addition, about half of all lexical words in Korana began with a click compared to a quarter in Khoekhoe.
Korana is principally recorded in a notebook by Carl Meinhof from 1879 which contains five short stories; some addition work was done in Ponelis (1975). As of 2009, the EuroBABEL project is searching for remaining speakers.
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