Culture Corner: Preserving Local Languages

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In South Africa, the Khoisan people, made of the Khoikhoi and San, were prevented from practicing their culture and speaking their local language during the colonial period and apartheid regime. After apartheid, the San people’s language almost went extinct except for about 20 people who could speak it fluently1. Shortly after, all the local fluent speakers in Nluu died except one woman. Now, 88-year old Ouma Katrina Esau is the only Nluu speaking person and is going to great lengths to preserve the language. So how do we preserve languages? Nhlanhla Sehume is joined by Peter Lor, Research Associate, Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria.

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