The Last Speaker: South Africa’s dying language | Africa Direct Documentary

Author Avatar

Al Jazeera English

Joined: Mar 2024
Spread the love


The Last Speaker: South Africa’s dying language | Africa Direct Documentary


Claudia Snyman is a language researcher in South Africa and her grandmother, Katrina Esau, is the last remaining fluent speaker of N|uu, the ancient language of the San, or Bushman, people.

Together they work painstakingly on a dictionary of the click-based words of this disappearing language, believed to be 25,000 years old. Once…

source

Reviews

0 %

User Score

0 ratings
Rate This

Sharing

Leave your comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

46 Comments

  1. Many thanks for watching. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

    African stories by African filmmakers. Perspectives from a diverse continent; storytelling in the hands of local talent. If you'd like to watch more episodes from Africa Direct, find them here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzGHKb8i9vTzcNFylHo6TGkMw220146sj

    Follow Africa Direct on social media:

    – YouTube: https://aje.me/AJAfricaDirect-YT

    – Twitter: http://twitter.com/AJAfricaDirect

    – Facebook: http://facebook.com/AJAfricaDirect

    – Instagram: http://instagram.com/ajafricadirect/

  2. In the neighboring Namibia, we also have a large San Population. They seem to speak a different dialect from that depicted here, they are Hai||om, !Khung and others. Just like the youngsters in the video, some San here speak other languages more, such as the related Khoekhoegowab, Afrikaans, Setswana, and others. The bushmen group of languages are all endangered. I hear similar thing in Botswana.

  3. It would be much easier for the San language to emerge rapidly amongst Xhosa people, because we share the same clicks from ancient times. Since some of the villages in the Eastern Cape have caves containing rock paintings, conveying a message that we once lived amongst ourselves and hunted wild animals. Even the word 'Xhosa' there are references in History that it was derived from the San language meaning 'angry men'.

  4. It's like sitting next to the last member of your friend group who's dying, or a grandmother, and all you want to do is spend every moment, and try as best you can to remember every detail. Knowing full well it will slip away, but nothing else in the world is more important than to hold on

  5. trust me when i say this, European colonialism is the reason why African languages are getting extinct so rapidly. we must ban English & Afrikaans. these settler colonialists have destabilized our cultures. we must learn to preserve our African identities & not adopt western influences. the government must make sure everyone is taught this beautiful language. it should be incorporate in our daily lives. we should also learn school subjects using this language (N|uu) or at least a widely spoken African language. English is not our standard.

  6. I come from a nomadic tribe aswell and we all speak different dialects but the different tribes still understand each other so theres no way the language will die there will always be a few groups who still honour tradition

  7. One thing about this is to say how little we know of own history and it's language. The more things change, the more they stay the same…. In this case they became forgotten!!!

  8. With God nothing is impossible… through prayer and perseverance we ought to join together to preserve this precious language. I wonder how it's not taught in our local schools. OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS SHOULD BE ASHAMED…!!!

  9. Its a beautiful language. Thats why those colonialists killed them off and did not want them to speak it. It sounded beautiful but was too complicated for them to speak, so jealousy of having a black person having a more versatile tongue than them (considering that our tongue had no problems at all learning and speaking their language), too over.

  10. Sadly after the union of South Africa and apartheid government many African people have lost thier culture and become more European.Afrikaans is colloquial language that developed from translation between khoi and dutch .Krotoa.was a translator for jan van Riebeek, the new south Africa was to recognise all languages but sadly English is what most products in shops are tv and movies from America have a bad influence ,,,many black south Africans copy American rap and music and fashion thees days .

  11. For those picking up that there's actually two languages used in the clip to tell the story – you are correct. The other dutch-sounding language is called Afrikaans, and the people of the northern province and west coast speak the most beautiful and pure dialect of that language to my ear.

  12. As a Xhosa person there is fable that says the name by which we are defined "Xhosa" is a San word which means fierce people. I don't know how true that is our culture is very lost to us as a nation but that's something I will always find fascinating. I wish there were more resources poured into this