The San and the Colonization of the Cape, 1770–1879. By MIKLÓS SZALAY. (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung, Vol. 11.) Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 1995. Pp. 151. No price given (ISBN 3-927620-58-0).

Abstract

Language death, a widespread phenomenon in modern Africa does not entail that the speakers of a given language have no descendants only that those descendants cannot speak their parents' language. The same is true of the death of a culture, although this is often less clearly recognized. Thus within the boundaries of modern South Africa, there is virtually no-one who can speak the San, or Bushman, languages, which until two hundred years or less ago were flourishing, if only in pockets. Equally, there is now no-one who lives according to the hunter–gatherer lifestyle from which the San take their name.