Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
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Nama queen: When the Covid pandemic started Dina Christiaans used her car as a recording studio when she translated the news into Nama. (Image: David Harrison/M&G)
DINA CHRISTIAANS

Meet the queen working to keep South Africa’s Nama language alive

Even in hardship Nama blooms.

  • Eunice Masson
5 min read
Dav Andrew is a Cape Town-based illustrator and designer known for his Afrofuturist drawings. He was inspired to draw Ouma Griet Seekoei after her death in May, noting that she was “a language activist, fighting for government to recognize her endangered language and help it survive”
AFRIKAANS

Saving southern Africa’s oldest languages

The decline of N|uu dates all the way back to 1652, when the first Europeans arrived by ship at the Cape of Good Hope.

  • Simon Allison
  • Refiloe Seiboko
8 min read