Reynard the fox in South Africa

Note 2 — PREFACE.

Reading edition

I give here some extracts from Mr. Wallmann’s letter, dated Barmen, 13th April, 1850, which was the only help of a grammatical or lexical nature then available for me in my study of this Nama translation of Luke’s Gospel:—

“I transmit hereby Luke’s Gospel in Namaqua, … which I can lend you, however, only for four weeks, as I have already previously promised it to some one else.

“Should your labours permit it, I wish to request you to make a little trial whether the Namaqua is somewhat related to the South African family of Languages. For the present a mere negative decision on this point is all that is wanted, and I should like to have very soon the opinion of some good philologist regarding it. Moffat states that when he gave specimens of Namaqua to a Syrian who came from Egypt, he was told that he (the Syrian) had seen slaves in the market of Cairo who were of lighter colour than other Africans, and whose language resembled that of the Namaqua. Moffat also says that some ancient authors have mentioned a nation in the interior of Africa who were very similar to the Hottentots. Moffat seems himself, however, to ascribe little value to these accounts, for his guesses fall at once upon the Chinese. According to communications from our Missionary Knudsen, the Namaqua language seems well formed. He mentions as personal pronouns:—

Tita I saaz thou (sāts) χyb he (ǁẽip) sada we sako you χyku they (ǁĕiku)

but to show the modifications which the pronouns undergo according to the gender, and whether the person (spoken to) is included or excluded (in the first person plural), the following examples of inclusive or exclusive forms are given:—

“We are captains.”

(incl.) Sake ke kauauke mascul.