The linguistic research has focused on the morphosyntactic features of the language. These were underanalyzed and virtually unknown to the linguistic public which also applies to the Tuu family in general. Only the great phonological complexity of the East !Xoon variety of Taa spoken in Botswana, has been worked on by Anthony Traill.
A grammar sketch, a collection of texts with interlinearization and annotation as well as an extensive vocabulary (to be extended to a dictionary in the future) is planned to be edited. In providing the necessary linguistic information for a practical use of the language (orthography etc.), another aim of the project is to support the efforts made by San communities to have their languages given official recognition in society and to be used in appropriate communication contexts like, for example, in schools.
The anthropological research has focused on the Namibian Taa communities, in particular on their unwritten history (Boden 2007, 2012), the mapping of former land use patterns (Boden 2011b), the collection of land form terms and place names (Boden 2009, 2011a) and the kinship system (Boden forthcoming).
Since Namibian speakers of Taa have remained unconsidered to the greatest possible extent in official historiography as well as on official maps, the anthropological documentation aimed at making their presence visible both for the historical record and by documenting their intimate knowledge of the landscape and environment. Products include an oral history booklet (Boden 2007), maps and a series of posters presenting local knowledge of the Southern Kalahari flora and fauna.
Boden, Gertrud. 2012. “Who were the ancestors of the Namibian !Xoon? A preliminary approach based on oral and selected written sources.” Anthropos 107.2.
Boden, Gertrud. Forthcoming. “Variation and change in Taa kinship terminologies.” Berthold, Falko, Ernszt, Martina & Anne-Maria Fehn (eds.). Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium of Khoisan Languages and Linguistics. July, 10-14 2011, Riezlern/Kleinwalsertal. Research in Khoisan Studies. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.
Boden, Gertrud. 2011a. “The documentation of place names in an endangered language environment – A Case Study of the !Xoon in Southern Omaheke/Namibia.” Anthropological Linguistics 53.1: 34-76.
Boden, Gertrud. 2011b. “Becoming invisible – Changing Land Use Practices and Identity Strategies of the !Xoon in Namibia between the 1920s and 1970s.” Journal of Namibian Studies 10: 7-29.
Boden, Gertrud. 2009. “From Utility to Perceptual Salience: Cultural, Lexical, and Conceptual Change in the Southern Kalahari Landscape.” Anthropological Linguistics 51.3-4:1-25.
Boden, Gertrud (ed.). 2007. !Qamtee |aa ǂXanya – The Book of Traditions. Histories, Texts and Illustrations of the !Xoon and ‘N|ohan People in Namibia. Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien.
Güldemann, Tom. 2010. The relation between focus and theticity in the Tuu family. In Fiedler, Ines and Anne Schwarz (eds.), The expression of information structure: a documentation of its diversity across Africa. Typological Studies in Language 91. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 69-93.
Güldemann, Tom. 2013a. Minority languages informing the historical analysis of major written languages: a Tuu perspective on the ‘give’ ~ object marker polysemy in Sinitic. Journal of Asian and African Studies 85.
Güldemann, Tom. 2013b. Morphology: !Xoon of Lone Tree. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. 2013c. Phonology: East !Xoon. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. 2013d. Syntax: !Xoon of Lone Tree. In Voßen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoisan languages. Routledge Language Family Series. London: Routledge.
Güldemann, Tom. forthcoming. The Lower Nossob varieties of Tuu: ǃUi, Taa or neither? In Güldemann, Tom and Anne-Maria Fehn (eds.), Beyond ‘Khoisan’: historical linguistic relations in the Kalahari Basin. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Naumann, Christfried. forthcoming. The Phoneme Inventory of Taa (West ǃXoon Dialect). In Rainer Vossen & Wilfrid H. G. Haacke (eds.), Essays in Memory of Anthony Traill. Cologne: Köppe.
Naumann, Christfried. forthcoming. Towards a Genealogical Classification of Taa Dialects. In Güldemann, Tom and Anne-Maria Fehn (eds.), Beyond ‘Khoisan’: historical linguistic relations in the Kalahari Basin. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins.