“Who would have thought that a woman who never saw the inside of a school…would be here today?”
Ouma Katrina Esau made it her life’s mission to keep an ancient South African language alive. Now, she’s been awarded with something incredible.
Northern Cape, South Africa (5 April, 2023) — You may never have heard of the indigenous San language that’s guided Her Excellency ǂXuu Katrina Esau’s life mission. You won’t find it as part of our official languages, and you’re not likely to hear it amid the bustle of languages at the supermarket. Unless of course, you bump into Ouma Katrina Esau or her students.
That’s because N|uu (an ancient language of the San from the Tuu family) is endangered. In fact, the ancient tongue of indigenous South Africans was even thought to be extinct at the time.
However, Ouma Katrina is evidence that it wasn’t, and she’s the last member of roughly 20 people in the Northern Cape who could speak it fluently decades ago.
Her mission? To keep an indigenous part of South Africa alive despite its suppression by teaching from a tiny classroom at her home. The teacher who never learned to read, and never saw the inside of a conventional classroom was now keeping an important part of history alive.
“There were only 20 of us who could speak the language and when no one else wanted to teach it to others, I decided that I would,” — Ouma Katrina.
A Slice of History Can Bake the Future!
Beyond teaching and preserving the language, Ouma Katrina has also given it new life in other ways. Co-written with her granddaughter Claudia Snyman, the two created a children’s book. N|uu now has its own dictionary too, of which the great teacher’s input was all-important.
Recently, the University of Cape Town also honoured Ouma Katrina’s efforts by awarding her an honorary literature doctorate.
“Who would have thought that a woman who never saw the inside of a school, who looked after sheep and cleaned kitchens on her hands and knees, would be here today?” —Ouma Katrina.
Of her achievement, UCT’s Dr Yvette Abrahams shared:
“When we honour Ouma today it is because we understand how far you have come to get here. We understand what you have gone through to preserve the language. We understand that you came from a place of such suppression that people were afraid to even talk the language in the daylight.
“May this event be a forerunner to the beautiful future that we are going to build.”
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