Reviewing the Topic: Literacy and Language amongst the KhoeSan

Abstract

The extent to which Khoe and San people speak and are literate in their own languages within South Africa is of concern. The “Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in the Transformation of School and Tertiary Education in South Africa Seminar”, held in Johannesburg in 2018 debated these issues, amongst others. Papers presented at the seminar questioned which languages should be considered KhoeSan, how and if these languages should be maintained, and debated whether or not the term KhoeSan was meaningful in language terms. Some presenters pushed us to broaden our definition of language and literacy, to decolonise or indigenise the terms, and the practice of research as a whole. This paper provides a brief insight into some of the issues surrounding the topic as discussed at the seminar and provides a background to the conception, logistics, planning and challenges of the seminar. As the papers presented in this special issue emanated from the seminar a summary of them is also provided.

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