- Title
- Exploring the History of the Writing of isiXhosa: An Organic or an Engineered Process?
- Creator
- Maseko, Pamela
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date Issued
- 2017
- Date
- 2017
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/468355
- Identifier
- vital:77046
- Identifier
- https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2017.1400218
- Description
- The current questions in academia regarding Africanisation of knowledge emanate from a historical context, where focus is on Africans as subjects rather than masters in the production of knowledge. The question of how Europeans used indigenous African languages since their arrival in Africa to subjugate native populations shrewdly, has been the subject of debates on language for some time now. The extent of the subjugation was evident in the prescription, through grammar rules and linguistics, of how the languages of the indigenous population were to be written. In this article, I give firstly the historical context of the grammaticalness of isiXhosa oral form, as observed by missionaries; through their writings that document their early contact with amaXhosa. Secondly, I discuss the context of the development of isiXhosa and the prescriptiveness of the grammar rules adopted in describing the spoken form of the language. In the third section, I discuss the early isiXhosa-speaking literates and their writings that defied the newly prescribed grammar rules— by focusing on the works of Gqoba, who was editor of Isigidimi sama Xosa (The Kafir Express), a newspaper in which he also published his writings between 1873 and 1888. The conclusion is drawn that the early grammar rules and the subsequent linguistics study of isiXhosa did not reflect the spoken form of the language; but were rather designed in a way that made the missionaries learn the language easily, in order to communicate with amaXhosa—therefore, they developed it in a manner that served their own interests, and not the interest of the native population. Therefore, my thesis is that the study of the texts written by native speakers should serve as a primary base for Africans to move away from being subjects to being masters in the production of knowledge.
- Format
- 15 pages
- Format
- Language
- English
- Relation
- International Journal of African Renaissance Studies-Multi-, Inter-and Transdisciplinarity
- Relation
- Maseko, P., 2017. Exploring the History of the Writing of isiXhosa: An Organic or an Engineered Process?. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies-Multi-, Inter-and Transdisciplinarity, 12(2), pp.81-96
- Relation
- International Journal of African Renaissance Studies-Multi-, Inter-and Transdisciplinarity volume 12 number 2 81 96 2017 1753-7274
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Taylor and Francis Online Terms and Conditions Statement (https://www.tandfonline.com/terms-and-conditions)
- Hits: 4
- Visitors: 5
- Downloads: 1
Collections
Maseko, Pamela (Dr)
RU School of Languages and Literatures
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Exploring the History of the Writing of isiXhosa.pdf | 644 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |