Westphal was Professor of African Languages at UCT between 1962 and 1984, and is best known for his contributions to the studies of non-Bantu click languages, lumped together under a misleading cover term ‘Khoisan’ by other scholars. The Westphal sound files are precious because they include recordings of some languages, which are no longer spoken and of which there is no written record. The collection presented here includes sound files and manuscripts.

This interview series uses a biographical-linguistic approach aiming to preserve the sound of N|uu. Ouma Katrina employs her own agency in capturing her language and her life story (memoirs) to be recorded and archived in the way she would like it done by allowing her to speak uninterrupted for an hour at a time, about the inter-relationship between landscape, language and life story. The aim was to allow Ouma Katrina to reflect on the relationship between landscape and language in her mother tongue of the ancient language Nǀuu. Session overview: 6 May 2021: On day one, speaking in N|uu and Afrikaans, Ouma Katrina gives us a glimpse of her life. This includes some wonderful family memories as well as some heartbreaking stories of working as a farm labourer along with her sisters and father. 7 May 2021: On the second day of the interview, Ouma Katrina Esau shares in Nǀuu and Afrikaans how she was forced to move to Upington. 8 May 2021: On day three, Ouma Katrina shares some important wisdom, including the need to secure land for future generations, and the need for strong leadership that focuses on protecting people.

2022-03-26

Bradley van Sitters explains the pronunciation of the phrase "Do not get tired" in the Khoekhoegowab language to members of the audience, as a way to encourage the audience members to not stop clapping for graduates of the course as they receive their certificates on stage. An Afrikaans explanation of the phrase forms part of the video clip.

Video

2022-03-26

A student performance in Khoekhoegowab performed by Taslyn Maasdorp and Emanuel Springbok, both graduates of the Khoekhoegowab Foundation Language course. The language demonstration showcases basic introductions in Khoekhoegowab and a poem in Khoekhoegowab. English translations are included in the performance piece.

Video

Bradley van Sitters describes and contextualises the San and Khoi languages to Martin Gluckman in a team meeting held on 12 November 2020. A rich foundational overview of the Khoisan languages is provided with reference to where speakers of these languages are found today. Also in the meeting are Dr June Bam-Hutchison and Tauriq Jenkins.

Online Meeting

The term Khoisan, alternatively spelled “Khoesan,” is used by contemporary linguists as a convenient blanket term for the non-Bantu and non-Cushitic click-using languages of Africa and does not imply the existence of any familial relationships between the member groups. Some scholars include two isolate click languages of Tanzania, namely, Hadza and Sandawe, within the scope of a so-called “Macro-Khoisan,” although there is little evidence to suggest that these two languages are related even to each other, let alone to any of the southern African languages. This chapter begins by setting out the shifting speaker numbers and distributions of the diverse and often trans-nationally located Khoisan languages of southern Africa, as far as these have been reliably estimated for the present day on the basis of population surveys, and as far as they can be reasonably projected for the relatively recent, largely colonial period on the basis of historical records. The discussion then draws on comparative linguistic evidence (in both a narrow and wider sense) to assess various popular beliefs concerning the older, undocumented past of the Khoisan languages, which are often romantically imagined to be the last vestiges of some primordial African substrate – and the possibility of an alternative scenario is briefly sketched. The chapter concludes with a few brief notes on the uncertain future of these highly endangered African languages in an era of conflicting economic, political, and social-cultural demands.

Chapter

Recent years have seen a rise of KhoeSan revivalism in South Africa as identity politics in the country reach fever pitch. Using Stuart Hall's notion of articulation and his conceptualisation of cultural identity as either essentialist or reproductive, we explore revivalist articulations as they relate to language and culture. Specifically, we focus on attempts by those who claim KhoeSan descent to revive KhoeSan languages, and on the reclamation of Afrikaans as a language immersed in KhoeSan history. Central to the concept of articulation is that of ensemble, cultural forms that can be coupled and uncoupled in multiple ways, albeit constrained by their moment in history. We argue that ensembles offer a richness to revivalist vocalisations that, while at times controversial, merit embracing.

Article

Chapter 1. The linguistic classification of Kora. 1.1 Divisions and distributions of the Khoisan languages - a general overview - 1.2. General characteristics of the JU and TUU families - 1.3. General characteristics of the KHOE family. 1.3.1. The Kalahari and Khoekhoe branches of the KHOE - 13.2. The Khoekhoe branches of the KHOE - 1.4. Hypotheses concerning relationships between languages of the KHOE family and various other languages of Africa. 1.4.1. Mooted relations between the KHOE languages and languages of northern or eastern Africa - 1.4.2. Relations between the KHOE languages and other Khoisan languages - 1.4.3. Relations between the KHOE languages and local languages of the BANTU family - 1.4.4. Relations between the KHOE languages and varieties of Afrikaans. Chapter 2. Sources of the Cape Khoekhoe and Kora records: vocabularies, language data and texts. 2.1 Records of the Cape Khoekhoe: from the period prior to and after Dutch settlement (17th to late 18th centuries) - 2.2 Records of the Kora. 2.2.1. From the end of the Dutch period - 2.2.2. From the early period of British colonization in the first half of the 19th century - 2.2.3. From the later part of the 19th century - 2.2.4. From the 20th century - 2.2.5. Kora speakers in the 21st century. Chapter 3. The sounds of Kora. 3.1. Vowels and diphthongs. 3.1.1. Vowels - 3.1.2. Diphthongs - 3.2. The ordinary (or egressive) consonants of Kora. 3.2.1. Stops - 3.2.2. Nasals - 3.2.3. Fricatives - 3.2.4. Affricates - 3.2.5. Approximants - 3.2.6. Trill - 3.3. The clicks, or ingressive consonants of Kora. 3.3.1. The four basic (or 'radical') clicks of the Kora, identified by place - 3.3.2. The accompaniments of the Kora clicks - 3.4. The Kora system of tone melodies. 3.4.1. The citation melodies of Kora - 3.4.2. The two classes of alternative tone melodies used in particular contexts - 3.4.3. The theory of tonogenesis in Khoekhoe. Chapter 4. The structures of Kora. 4.1. The noun phrase. 4.1.1. Nominal expressions - 4.1.2. Qualifying expressions - 4.2. The adpositional phrase - 4.3. The verb phrase. 4.3.1. Verbs - 4.3.2. Adverbs - 4.4 The Kora sentence, part 1. 4.4.1. Action verbs in Kora, and the expression of tense, aspect and mood - 4.4.2. Process verbs - 4.4.3. Non-verbal predictions in Kora - 4.5. The Kora sentence, part 2. 4.5.1. Negatives - 4.5.2. Interrogatives - 4.5.3. Commands and polite requests - 4.5.4. Coordination - 4.5.5. Discourse connectives - 4.5.6. Phrasal adjectives, phrasal nominals, and phrasal adverbs - 4.6. Miscellaneous. Chapter 5. The heritage texts of the Korana people. 5.1. Collective and personal histories, and private commentaries - 5.2. Social and economic histories, and accounts of crafts and manufactures in earlier times - 5.3. Oratory, lyrics and folktales (or language-based arts). 5.3.1. The praise - 5.3.2. The funeral lament - 5.3.3. Lyrics - 5.3.4. Word games - 5.3.5. Animal stories. Chapter 6. A Kora-English dictionary, with Kora-English index - Kora-English - English-Kora index - Specialist list 1: Names of the Korana clans - Specialist list 2. Korana names 2: Korana names for animals, birds and smaller creatures - Specialist list 3: Korana names for plants and plant products.

Book

Contents: A tribute to Anthony T. Traill / Tim Couzens ; Introduction ; Some puzzles in !X⯥o kinship terminology / Alan Barnard ; What we seem to know about the Lexicon of early cape Dutch Pidgin (and always were afraid to question) / Hans den Besten ; Language development and community development in a San community / Megan Biesele ; The !X⯥o-English-Setswana trilingual dictionary in preparation: an experience / Andy Chebanne ; Doing what (you think) is right in the field: problematizing the documentation of endangered languages / G. Tucker Childs ; Odour terminology in !X⯥o / Didier Demolin, Anthony Traill, Gilles Sicard & Jean-Marie Hombert ; Tonal patterns in Khwe verb conjugation / Edward D. Elderkin ; African languages in the African century: extinction or revival? Patterns, trends and strategies / Rosalie Finlayson & Sarah Slabbert ; Phonological regularities of consonant systems in genetic lineages of Khoisan / Tom G赬dermann ; From 17th century Cape Khoekhoe to 20th century !Gora and Namibian Khoekhoe / Wilfrid H.G. Haacke ; Gender assignment rules in Jul'hoan and !X⯥o / Henry Honken ; Verb-final Glottalisation, tone and passivity in Tangale / Hermann Jungraithmayr ; Evidentials in !Xun / Christa K诮ig ; Naming mathematical concepts in Rumanyo, a Bantu language of Northern Namibia / Wilhelm J.G. M诨lig ; Khoisan phonotactics: a case study from Glui / Hirosi Nakagawa ; The Phoneme inventory of Taa (West !Xoon dialect ) / Christfried Naumann ; A comparison of kinship terminologies of West Kalahari Khoe: Haba, Tshila, Glui, Gllana, and Naro / Hitomi Ono ; Interpreting Hadza data / Bonny Sands -- Reflections on J.H. Wilhelm's "Hukwe" wordlist / Rainer Vossen ; Evidence for a multi-lingual community in the Tsodilo Hills, Botswana (ca. CE 700-900) / Edwin N. Wilmsen ; Anthony Traill (1939-2007): list of publications.

Book

This chapter is found within Lone Tree - Scholarship in the Service of the Koon: Essays in memory of Anthony T. Traill.

Chapter

This paper investigates the genetic affiliation of the three northernmost dialects of Namibian Khoekhoegowab, viz. ǂAakhoe, Haiǁom and Sesfontein Damara, on the strength of serial verb formation. The paper proceeds from Güldemann’s hypothesis that these and other lects developed through Khoekhoeisation by ‘Nama’. The claim that Khoe-Kwadi languages do not employ verb serialisation is refuted by data from Khoekhoe as well as from Kalahari Khoe, and it is shown that ǂAakhoe in particular employs a juncture a in serialisation in ways similar to those of Naro and Gǀui. The use of this juncture is argued to be strong evidence of a close genetic link of ǂAakhoe (and, to a lesser extent Haiǁom) to West Kalahari Khoe. The evidence is offered in support of my hypothesis that the Damara (with the ǂAakhoe and Haiǁom) already became Khoe speakers before they encountered the Nama.

Article

This paper presents a synopsis of the linguistic and migratory 'prehistory' of the Damara, the Negroid speakers of Khoekhoegowab. This is then compared to Richard Elphick's hypothesis concerning the Khoesaan cradle in Botswana; to existing archeological data; and to Christopher Ehret's hypothesis about proto-Kwadi migration into south-western Angola. It is concluded that Richard Elphick's hypothesis about the migrations of Negroid Khoe speakers into Namibia and south-westen Angola, the proto-Kwadi alias proto-Damara, appears to be basically correct.

Article

Unavailable

CD with Booklet

This volume has its roots in a seminar on Khoisan syntax taught by Chris Collins. The paper in section I (Syntax), several of which grew out of this seminar, apply recent syntactic theories to topics in Khoisan. In section II (Phonology and Phonetics), we present two studies: one dealing with click accompaniments, with other reduplicative templates and syllable weight. Section III (Historical and Contact Issues) examines the influence of Khoisan languages on the development of Afrikaans. This section also details historical and genetic ties between various sub-groups with Khoisan. Although much controversy surrounds the spelling of "Khoisan/Khoesan", we do not pretent to resolve this confllict here. Instead, we leave the choice to the author. The title of the volume follows the prevailing American convention. In all cases within this volume, Khoisan and Khoesan are taken to have the same referent.

Book

Book

Recordings have been selected from a collection of 75 rpm vinyl records owned by the Department of Linguistics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Many of the originals were made in the Phonetics Laboratory of the University in 1936 when a group of Khomani and Auni Bushmen visited Johannesburg for the Empire Exhibition. They consist of spoken pieces, musical performances and the imitation of leopards, dogs, baboons and galloping horses.

CD with Booklet

Heretofore, the classification of Khoisan languages has been oriented toward genetically defined units, the results of which still remain un-satisfactory. In this paper, an alternative approach will be pursued, whereby the Kalahari Basin as the distributional centre of the languages spoken in this area (including Non-Khoisan languages) is surveyed with regard to basic typological features. These and the methodology to analyze them are basically taken from Johanna Nichols’ work on areal typology.

Book

Two volumes

Book

This article/chapter can be found in "Festschrift Meinhof". A more accurate discription is not available currently.

Article

Khoisan languages are spoken by tiny and remote-dwelling communities of Botswana, the members of which are characterised by socio-economic hardships and illiteracy in their own languages and in general. Historically and socially, these people emerged from a life of hunting and gathering, and, in that lifestyle mode, they were easily subdued and exploited by other language communities for cheap and serf labour. Colonialism found them in this social state, and post-colonialism has left them in the same state. As poor and marginalised subalterns, they have not had any means to advocate for their language and culture, and are currently assimilated into other peoples’ languages and cultures. Consequently, the remaining languages of these communities, spoken in remote areas by poor people, are threatened with extinction because they remain under-developed, under-documented, and are at best still at the stage of documentation by anthropologists and linguists. As illiterate people, the speakers of these Khoisan languages have no survival strategies for their languages in this ever-evolving, modern world. With their poverty and sociolinguistic marginalisation, they are devoid of any means of promoting their languages. This discussion focuses on the pitiful situation of the Khoisan languages of Botswana. Botswana’s language-use policy will be critically examined and characterised as one factor in the marginalisation and disempowerment of minority groups, both of which lead to the languages’ endangerment and death.

Article

This doctoral thesis presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The study presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the language, as well as a sample of four texts. The data for this dissertation were gathered by the author during fieldwork in the area where the language is spoken. The language has a rich phonology, with sets of lateral fricatives and affricates, ejectives, and fifteen clicks. The nominal domain is characterized by the absence of regular number marking. The verbal domain, on the other hand, shows various ways of number marking, which can express participant plurality and pluractionality. The study further provides a comprehensive description of the morphology and semantics of verbal derivation, such as iterative, factitive, causative and middle stems, and verbal case markers that introduce an additional pronominal object. Sandawe has various types of clitics, notably subject/modality markers and mediative clitics, which have a variable position in the clause. A grammar of Sandawe is of relevance to specialists in Khoisan studies as well as to general linguists and typologists interested in number marking, verbal derivation, and clitics.

Theses & Dissertations

An ethnography of the Khoikhoi people, their language and religous beliefs. At the time, the author through this and his other work contributed to the "westerners" understanding of the Khoi and San people.

Book