Professor Anthony Traill (1939–2007) was a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

(specifically a

phonetician Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

), who was the world's foremost authority on a San (more broadly, a

Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...

) language called !Xóõ. He published widely on this language, including a dictionary of the

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

. !Xóõ is famous for having probably the largest consonant inventory of any language on the planet. For the most part, Traill's publications addressed the phonetics of !Xóõ in relation to related San languages. He also contributed importantly to the Khoisan and Bantu instrumental phonetic literature on tone with respect to

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

and

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

. Traill was Professorial Research Fellow at

Wits University The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

for nearly the decade since he was Professor and Chair of Linguistics (until 1998), in the Department of Linguistics, at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. He spoke highly competent !Xóõ, having conducted research in the !Xóõ communities of

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

on nearly 100 field trips over more than 35 years. He also spoke Zulu,

Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) i ...

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...

and

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

. Traill developed one of the bumps that adult native !Xóõ speakers have on his

larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...

after speaking the language for a long time. After a long illness, Traill died on April 26, 2007, in Johannesburg, survived by his wife, Jill, and children Stephen, Carol and Patrick.

Publications

*Traill, Anthony. ''A !Xóõ Dictionary. '' (edited by Rainer Vossen). University Frankfurt/Main: Johann Wolfgang Goethe. , . Volume 9 of "Research in Khoisan Studies", which has . *Traill, Anthony (1986). ''Phonetic and Phonological Studies of !Xóõ Bushman''. (Quellen Zur Khoisan-Forschung, No 1), John Benjamins, January 1, 1986, . *Traill, Anthony (1973). A Preliminary Sketch of !Xu) phonetics. Edinburgh University Department of Linguistics Work in Progress 6:1-23. *Traill, Anthony (1985). Phonetic and Phonological Studies in !Xoo Bushman. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. *Traill, Anthony (1990). Depression without depressors. South African Journal of African Languages 10: 166-172. *Traill, Anthony. (1995). The Khoesan Languages. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Language in South Africa. 27-49. Cape Town: Cambridge University Press. *Traill, Anthony, James S. M. Khumalo, Paul Fridjhon (1987). Depressing facts about Zulu. African Studies 46: 255-274.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Traill, Anthony 1939 births 2007 deaths Linguists from South Africa University of the Witwatersrand academics Linguists of Khoisan languages 20th-century linguists