The Last Speaker: South Africa’s dying language | Africa Direct Documentary
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…
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10:25 Ugandan Knuckles
Similar to what whales and dolphins do! Very interesting!
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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.
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'.
so beautiful!
Now this is my REAL language, not Afrikaans
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
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.
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
We should have 12 official languages
Lies though, there a several families still left, speaking that language and yes it is dwindling but they are still there are we can still revive our mother land tongue
Hi, I’m South African and have a very keen interest in learning languages… I can speak most SA languages fluently…. If there’s a volunteer to teach me Iam willing to learn.
I like the way she caring her grandma
Fun fact the khoi san refused to join forces with xhosas to fight the white people which led to the khoi san being almost alienated hence theres such a few of them in todays world.
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!!!
Click language be Gone!
is she really the last speaker though? i dont think the claims are valid
It evolved into zulu. Cabanga
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I was on a plau to cape town with this lady and a man that helped her, he was so sweet
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…!!!
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.
My nephew is a linguist specialising in Xri, among others. Currently studying at Anne Arbor, University of Michigan.
Martin Mössmer
I had the privilege of visiting this cave but it’s not finished and we just walked in there was nobody there it looked abandoned very sad
And it's crazy how the nguni languages came from a group of people that were part of this tribe that spoke this language
They are part of today's Basotho and they adopt Sotho like others zulu, ndebele and other clans 😂
"We will even teach under trees if we have to." ❤ "Dié taal sal in die skool wees! Onse taal sal geleer word!" ❤
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 .
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.
As descendants of the San/bush this ouma is a treasure to us
Black South Africans always talk about colonisers when they themselves are settlers and have made the land their own
I love this so much makes me proud that I'm also part of the qriqua lineage
My heart breaks that we’ve lost so much of our first peoples’ culture 💔 I’m so glad that we have South Africans making sure we preserve it
Thank you Aljazeera
Selah.
So sad to see my ancestors mother tongue is wiped out
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
Long live the Indigenous Peoples of the worl!!
Khoisan people, just like the red Indians off America, are not recognized at all.
First Europeans overpowered us, now it's black people
Beautiful!
I would love to know if I'm related to khoi/san or not, our history has been erased and diluted so much it's hard to know where we come from
my great great grandmother was able to speak this language fluently, but it unfortunately died with her
The fact that gogo is still wearing her wedding ring gave me some warmth
Hearing gogo say “I’m not feeble. I’m still young…” made me think about a lot of things