'N lysie Hottentotse woorde uit 1626

Abstract

SYNOPSIS Thomas Herbert, “Esquire” (later knighted) was at Table Bay in 1626 as a young man of about 21 years of age, and here he compiled a list of 31 Hottentot words, including the numeralia 1–10. This is the oldest known collection of words of this interesting click language which travellers found so very difficult to write. This article is a study of all known old glossaria of Khoi‐Khoin up to 1815. It deduces certain “consonant laws” and the author was in a position to identify with certainty 28 of the 31 words of Herbert. For this he sometimes had to re‐interpret Herbert's English, e.g. his “skin” was used for our “kaross”, his “yard” means a “kraal” or a complex of Hottentot huts, and his “egge‐shelles” is based on confusing material with the object, here a “pot” made of ostrich egg‐shells. Most astonishing and exciting was the proof that Herbert did in fact distinguish between three different click sounds and developed a way of writing them. The sharp, clear palatal and cerebral implosive clicks (...