This is the main database for lexical information on Eastern #Hoan, directly linked to the etymological database for Peripheral Khoisan. This language is extremely important as a "bridge" between North and South Khoisan, shedding additional light on the nature of their relation; unfortunately, very little information on it is available publicly.
Data sources are restricted to a number of articles by Anthony Traill, Jeffrey Gruber, and Chris Collins, who have independently collected data on #Hoan, as well as Henry Honken, who quotes some of Gruber's data in his own articles. Data quality generally ranges from exceptional to mediocre (particular caution must be exercised towards the data in Traill 1973 - the article is heavy on the basic lexicon, which is good, but the transcription is almost nearly as unreliable as the one used in Dorothea Bleek's dictionary).
The database consists of the following fields:
1. Proto-#Hoan: the "unified" variant of various transcriptions of the same #Hoan etymon in different sources. Only in a few cases do we get information on dialectal variation within #Hoan, so this is not truly a "proto"-form; however, all the dialectal forms and different transliterations should be easily deductible from it.
2. Meaning: the meaning of the #Hoan etymon.
3. Peripheral Khoisan etymology: link to the corresponding entry in the Peripheral Khoisan database.
4. #Hoan: the bulk of the data. As of now, no standard, unified transcription is accepted for #Hoan, so in most cases the authors' original transliteration is preserved. The abbreviations are as followed: (C.) for Chris Collins, (CF) for data available at the Khoisan site of Cornell University, (G.) for Jeffrey Gruber, (T.) for Anthony Traill, (BC.) for Bell-Collins 2001, (H.) for Henry Honken (although it seems that most of the forms quoted by Honken originally stem from Gruber's collections as well).
5. Notes: various notes and comments.
6. References: bibliographical links.
Notes on transcription:
Clicks: ʘ = labial click, | = dental click, ǂ = palatal click, ! = alveolar click, || = lateral click. The sign $ denotes an unidentified click influx.
#Hoan click effluxes as marked in the "Proto-#Hoan field" include zero (no special marking); voiced articulation (ɡ|, etc.); nasalisation (ɳ|, etc.); preglottalized nasalization (ʔ|n, etc.); aspiration (|h, etc.); nasalized aspiration (ɳ|h, etc.); velar fricative (|x, etc.); velar affricate (|kx, etc.); uvular stop (|q, etc.); aspirated uvular stop (|qh, etc.); voiced uvular stop (|G, etc.); glottalized uvular stop (|qʔ, etc.); glottal stop (|ʔ, etc.).
Non-click consonants: c, ʒ = hissing voiceless and voiced affricates; č = hushing voiceless affricate; š, ž = hushing voiceless and voiced fricatives; ć, ʒ́ = palatal voiceless and voiced affricates; ʔ = glottal stop (also marks glottalized articulation in consonants such as cʔ and qʔ); q = uvular stop.
Vowels: the upper tilde sign denotes nasalisation; lower tilde denotes pharyngealization; á, à, ǎ, â = tonal markings (transcribed inconsistently, since they are only marked in J. Gruber's notes).
All the #Hoan etyma are transcribed in widely varying ways in existing sources, but the unified transcription in the "Proto" field reflects these various styles fairly closely. In the "#Hoan" field, apart from some purely graphical changes (e. g. g| and n| are consistently changed to ɡ| and ɳ|), the original transliterations are given.