Learning South African languages : the historical origins of standard Xhosa , and the uses to which the written form of the language was put c. 1770-1935

Mathiesen, Kim Brereton

Learning South African languages : the historical origins of standard Xhosa , and the uses to which the written form of the language was put c. 1770-1935

Master Thesis

2000

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Historical Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation centres on the social history of the Xhosa language as it became codified into writing during the nineteenth century. My particular is interest is in why efforts were made to learn written Xhosa, and how the written form of the languages was used variously by travel writers, missionaries, converts, interpreters, indigenous speakers, the educated African elite, and professional philologists between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. The outcome of the uses to which the language was put was the construction of a standard form of the language.

Description

Bibliography: leaves 210-220.

Keywords

Xhosa language

Reference:

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