4.1 Kaaps

4.1 Kaaps

© 29.9.2022 by Peter Snyders

For a diacritical sign, we use the square brackets [ ]. (Some linguists use / /). A diacritical sign says that the sign can only be expressed in one way, not always the way it is spelled. The five primary Kora vowel sounds expressed diacritically are:

[a] Afrikaans: dag, wat, ag, kat. 

[a] English:    but, tough, among, oven (Something like [ʌ] alt + 652)

[ɛ] Afrikaans: (Alt + 603) vet, bedek, ek, wet

[ɛ] English: bet, says, guest, dead, said 

[i] Afrikaans: riet, iets, fiets, familie

[i] English: beet. beat, we, see, sea, key, believe, and people

[ɔ] Afrikaans: (alt + 596) nog, kom, bom, som, tog

[ɔ] English: bought, caught, wrong, stalk, saw, ball

[u] Afrikaans hoed, skroef; [ū] loer, voer (longer vowel alt + 363)

[u] English: boot, who, through, to, two, move

If you would like to type a phoneme, press and hold down the alt key and then press the number.

Linguists decided that the first vowel (slight positional nuances excluded) sounding like the a in words such as putt, club, rough, what, and truck besides the [a] words above) should be represented by the letter a between forward slashed brackets, viz /a/. So now, no matter in what language in the world this phoneme (specific sound of a letter) appears, it will always be indicated by /a/ or [a], and we will know exactly how it sounds, no matter how it is spelled. 

Occasionally, two phonemes are used for the same sound even though the meaning remains the same, for example, the letter j in the Dutch name Jan is written as /j/, and the letter y in English you is written as /y/. To indicate the similarity, such phonemes are written in square brackets, viz. [j] x [y]. 

In Prof. Du Plessis’s book, Kora, all the phonemes are written in bold, which dispenses with the slash or square brackets. Since the variants between square brackets are so minimal, we, too, will be departing from the general agreement and write all our phonemes within square brackets, [a], instead of between forward slashes as in /a/. 

One more thing before we continue. The diacritical sound [ε] in Kora is simply e (ê in Afrikaans). The [ɔ] is written o in Kora (ô in Afrikaans).

The diacritic signs for the other letters will be pointed out later. So our extra English examples of this [a] sound are tentatively written diacritically as: p[a]tt, cl[a]b, r[a]gh, wh[a]t, and tr[a]ck. Similar examples for Kaaps are: w[a]t (what); tr[a]w[a]nte (henchmen); n[a] (to, after); [a]s (ash, if); v[a]s (fasting); s[a]l (shall, will); d[a]t (that); k[a]n (jug, can); l[a]g (laugh]; and [a]skies (excuse me, apologise).

The phoneme [a] is also found in Dutch words such as: h[a]llo (hello); midd[a]g (afternoon); [a]vond (evening); d[a]g (day); J[a]n (a name of a person); d[a]nk; (thank you or thanks); bed[a]nkt (resign); [a]lstublieft (please), and m[a]g (power). Can you now find examples in your own speech and writing where this sound [a] appears?

Because this [a] is in the inventories (collections of sounds) of both the Dutch and the Kora languages, the Kora speaker immediately recognises the sound and identifies with it. Our examples in English confirm that [a] also appears in English, even if the spelling of the word is often different.

In most dictionaries, the word is followed by the diacritical expression, often in slanted brackets (/ /). So, if you know the diacritical signs, you will know exactly how the word is pronounced. So, when Van Riebeeck points to himself as Jan, Djorro recognises the [a] sound. The [j] sound is not in the Kora dictionary, so Djorro changes it to [dj], which means that he pronounces Jan’s name as [Dzã(n).]

The [n] sound is also in the Kora dictionary, but Kora is a nasalised language like French. Nasalised consonants, like n and m, for example, is expressed through the nose. If there is a vowel, like [a] for example, occurring before the n or m, the nasalising is transferred to the vowel. This means that the [n] is not needed. The vowel then gets a tilde (~), like [ʤã]. 

Kaaps started as a pidgin where everything had to be expressed in the simplest terms, so Jan would be expressed as [ʤãn]. The nasalisation is also problematic for Pidgin-Kaaps, so the pidgin discarded it. So, unlike Djorro, a Kaapser would say [ʤan]. We have many Kaaps words in our wordlists where j is changed to dj. 

Remember how Pidgin-Kaaps works: where the sound in a foreign language is not part of the Kora inventory (list of sounds), the strange sound is substituted with a sound in Kora. This will explain many of the words foreign to Dutch. So, the Dutch is [jan], but the Kora is [ʤã], and Pidgin-Kaaps is [ʤan]. 

Remember Matthew 10: 19 – 20? It is God, the Father, who is doing all the talking and adaptations to the Pidgin-Kaaps. Anyone who says bad things about Kaaps, is accusing the Holy Spirit.

If you have not yet downloaded Kora, please click onto the link below and do so.

https://sahistory.org.za/archive/kora-lost-khoisan-language-early-cape-and-gariep-menan-du-plessis