A language that has existed for more than 20,000 years is at risk of extinction.
It is a click language that originates from the San, who are members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa.
It is descended from the ǂKhomani people, who originated from the southern Kalahari, a savanna on the present-day borders of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
There is very little written evidence of the language in history as it was spoken, as well as its people being beaten and even killed for using it by the British Empire when they arrived to colonize Africa in the 19th century.
It drove the language underground and many people didn’t want to speak it in public – that was until the 1990s when Dr. Nigel Crawhall, a sociolinguist, and the United Nations in an effort to uncover it.
A total of 25 people came forward as fluent in N|uu, but by December 2021 only Esau remained.
African Tongue, a professional linguistic consultancy that works with contemporary speakers of the endangered Ju, Tuu and Khoe languages in southern Africa to create creative and educational resources.
Linguist and director of the organization, Dr. Kerry Jones, spoke to IFLScience in detail about the history of the language.
She said: “The 1990s was a huge turning point and people started to feel safe to come forward.
“We’ve had these older people come in and say, ‘Look, I’m going to die anyway, so it’s okay. I’ll let you know: I’m not actually ‘coloured’, I’m San. And I can prove it because I can still use the language.’ Language became crucial in proving their identity.
Then all of a sudden these people came and started building fences and said you have to have documents and passports.
And since May, the younger generation has been learning the language for the first time in decades, with Essau visiting local schools to teach children the basics of the click language.
Not fluently, but like another language. But she’s literate and Ouma Katrina isn’t, so it’s a good combination between the two of them.”
