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<h3 class="MsoBodyText3"><span style="font-size: 28.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;" data-mce-style="font-size: 28.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">6.1 Kaaps</h3>© 29.9.2022 by Peter
SnydersWith the support of
Unison Music and Literature&nbsp;You are supposed to do your
own verification of what is presented because we are committed to nothing but the
truth. So, please look to see if the rule appears in your own way of writing
and speaking of Kaaps. &nbsp;After
we have given the more than 3 000 Kaaps words we will be using to substantiate
our understanding of how and why Kaaps is the way it is, you should look at all
the renditions of Kaaps by your fellow writers. With regard to assimilations,
when you read Chapter Three of Kora you will at times come across
words used by Prof. Menán du Plessis like: cross-dialectal
alternations, varieties, instead of, substitution, alternated and
self-correction. When we deal with
these, you would not even know it.&nbsp;So now we have just by way of trying to recreate
how the Khoikhoi created a new word with foreign Dutch sounds, we have given an
example why Kaaps say ek for ik and Dja(n) for Jan. We have given you a few examples from a long list of Kaaps words to
show that it was not created by an academic person, but they are part of many
people’s home language that is Kaaps. We would also have started some blog that
covers many aspects of the contact between the Khoikhoi and European languages.
Consult those issues if you would like to have a day-by-day European contact
before Van Riebeeck came to the Cape. &nbsp;At last, understanding
that Van Riebeeck had just said his name, the Khoikhoi gives in similar fashion
his own name, let’s say Dzoroǃnoagu. This means ‘I am Dzoro.’ Notice, like the Nguni languages in
South Africa, I am Dzoro is one ‘word.’ You are going to come across
numerous examples in Kaaps where two or more words assimilate into one word.&nbsp;Van Riebeeck realizes that even if he wanted to learn Kora,
that would never happen, what with the dj
and click and all. So, he replies (for instance) Joro [jɔrɔ] – to which Dzoro [ʤɔrɔ] can relate albeit with a
slight exchange of the first letter. If you read the early Cape history, you
will see that most of the Khoikhoi who had an association with the Dutch (and
the English) were given Western names. An example is Harry for Aushumao.&nbsp;Quibblers will argue
that Van Riebeeck had been to the Far East and would have therefore gone
directly to the point-and-name system. Since 1652, to date, there has been no
attempt at understanding the fundamental processes of Kaaps. Much of that which
has been said was imbued with race- and class-related ideologies. We need
centuries (around 372 years) to catch up, so we have to use the adiabatic
system of science where anything that is not relevant is excluded. &nbsp;Also, we have taken a
worst-case scenario because we would like to return to our postulation
(derivation from circumstances) like the greetings we originally attempted to
use. We have to concentrate only on the linguistics and leave out unnecessary
history and references, which could often be dubious.&nbsp;For us to proceed in a
systematic way, we would like to be allowed to go back to just a few basic linguistic
points that we shall need going forward. We will attempt, as Menán du Plessis
tried to do in her book, Kora, to
keep in mind our target groups and to try to remember our non-specialist
readership.&nbsp;The older linguistics
concentrated on the differences in
languages. This probably led to the propagation of ideas about so-called
“proper,” “cultured,” “pure” “superior” and “civilised” languages, among others&nbsp;The new (current)
linguistics decided to change the approach to what languages have in common. To standardise the phonetics (the study and systematic
classification of the sounds made in spoken utterance) they had only
one criterion: only civilised languages – spoken or written – would qualify. &nbsp;They defined a civilised language as a language that is rule-governed.
They discovered that all languages, with or without a writing system, are
rule-governed and therefore civilised! We will linguistically show how Kaaps
obey all the rules. We will prove that you cannot take Dutch, Kora or Afrikaans
as a standard for a completely new language like Kaaps.&nbsp;To
keep everything simple, allow us to only use the distinctive (diacritical) phonetic
signs [a,] [ε] (alt + 238), [i], [ɔ] (alt + 596) and [u]. These are the first or original
sounds used by the first humans to develop a language for themselves. The first
three are used by a baby when she cries, and the final two are added when the
child begins to speak. &nbsp;For
a diacritical sign, we use the square brackets [ ]. (Some linguists use / / ) A
diacritical sign says that the sign can only be expressed in one way, not
always the way it is spelt. The five primary vowel sounds expressed didactically
are:&nbsp;[a]
Afrikaans: dag, wat, ag, kat. [a]
English:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but, tough, among,
oven (Something like [ʌ] alt + 652)&nbsp;[ɛ]
Afrikaans: (Alt + 603) vet, bedek, ek, wet[ɛ]
English: bet, says, guest, dead, said &nbsp;[i]
Afrikaans: riet, iets, fiets, familie[i]
English: beet. beat, we, see, sea, key,
believe and people&nbsp;[ɔ]
Afrikaans: (alt + 596) nog, kom, bom, som, tog[ɔ]
English: bought, caught, wrong, stalk, saw,
ball&nbsp;[u]
Afrikaans hoed, skroef; [ū] loer, voer (longer
vowel alt + 363)[u]
English: boot, who, through, to, two, move&nbsp;If
you would like to type a phoneme, press and keep down the Alt key and then
press the number.&nbsp;Linguists
decided that the first vowel (slight positional nuances excluded) sounding like
the a in words such as putt,
club, rough, what and truck
besides the [a] words above) should be represented by the letter a between forward slashed brackets viz
/a/. So now, no matter in what language in the world this phoneme (specific
sound of a letter) appears, it will always be indicated by /a/ or [a], and we
will know exactly how it sounds no matter how it is spelled. &nbsp;Occasionally
two phonemes are used for the same sound even though the meaning remains the
same; for example, the letter j in
the Dutch name Jan is written as /j/
and the letter y in you is written as /y/. To indicate the
similarity, such phonemes are written in square brackets, viz. [j] x [y]. &nbsp;In
Du Plessis’s book, Kora, all the
phonemes are written in bold, which
dispenses with the slash or square brackets. Since the variants between square
brackets are so minimal, we, too, will be departing from the general agreement
and write all our phonemes within square brackets, [a] instead of between
forward slashes as in /a/. &nbsp;One
more thing before we continue. The diacritical sound [ε] in Kora is simply e
(ê in Afrikaans). The [ɔ] is written o in Kora (ô in Afrikaans).&nbsp;The
diacritic signs for the other letters will be pointed out later. So our extra
English examples of this [a] sound are tentatively written thus: p[a]tt,
cl[a]b, r[a]gh, wh[a]t and tr[a]ck.
Similar examples for Kaaps are: w[a]t (what); tr[a]w[a]nte (henchmen); n[a]
(to, after); [a]s (ash, if); v[a]s (fasting, if); s[a]l (shall, will); d[a]t
(that); k[a]n (jug, can); l[a]g (laugh); and [a]skies (excuse, apologise).&nbsp;The
phoneme [a] is also found in Dutch words such as: h[a]llo (hello); midd[a]g
(afternoon); [a]vond (evening; d[a]g (day); J[a]n (a name of a person); d[a]nk;
(thank you or thanks); bed[a]nkt (resign); [a]lstublieft (please); and m[a]g
(power). Can you now find examples in your own writing where this sound [a]
appears?&nbsp;Because
this [a] is in the inventories (collections of sounds) of both the Dutch and
the Kora languages, the Kora speaker immediately recognises the sound and
identifies with it. Our examples in English confirm that [a] also appears in
English even if the spelling of the word is sometimes different.Edited
13.10.2024&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3.10.2026&nbsp;

























































































































 &nbsp;

6.1 Kaaps

5.3 Curse

5.3 Khoikhoi

5.2 Curse

5.2 Khoikhoi by Peter Snyders in association with Unison
Music and Literary Publications&nbsp;&nbsp;When Bartholomew Dias’s two vessels were
first seen by the Khoikhoi herders in 1488 at Mossel Bay, he noted that they
had many cattle and sheep. So, he called the place Angra dos Vaqueiros, meaning
‘the Cove of Cowboys.’&nbsp; The Khoikhoi,
seeing for the first time people coming across the seas, were disturbed and drove
their cattle inland. &nbsp;Dias’s men were by this time wearied and
greatly afraid of the heavy seas they had encountered and wanted to return
home. The Portuguese crew sighted the unknown Cape and called it ‘Tormentoso’
(Cape of Storms). When King Joâo heard about it, he changed the name to ‘The
Cape of Good Hope’ because of the hope it meant for completing the voyage to
India. (R. Raven-Hart: Before Van Riebeeck, pp. 1– 2)&nbsp;On Wednesday, 8th November 1497,
Vasco Da Gama with his four vessels cast anchor at St. Helena Bay and remained
there for eight days. He noted the dark-complexioned Khoisan, a mixture of
Bushmen and Khoikhoi who had left their Khoekhoe (Khoikhoi) tribe. He says,
“They eat sea-wolves and whales and the flesh of gazelles and the roots of
plants.” They had no livestock. (R. Raven-Hart: Before Van Riebeeck,
p. 3)&nbsp;The next day, they captured a local man
gathering honey. They took him to the Commander’s (Da Gama’s) ship, where he
was placed at a table with the Commander, ‘and he ate everything we ate.’ Raven-Hart
(p3) adds that this story was obviously most unlikely because the Khoisan man would
have been so scared that he would not have been able to eat. He did show by
signs that his home was about three kilometres away in some hills.&nbsp;On Friday, the Khoisan was clothed and
given some trifles such as little bells and glass beads, and with signs, Da
Gama told him to bring his men to see him. &nbsp;On the 11th of November, about
fourteen Khoisan came, and Da Gama tried to give them cinnamon, cloves,
seed-pearls, gold, and other things, but they were not accustomed to them. When
Da Gama bartered a small copper coin for a sheath one of them wore over his
private parts, he saw that they knew and prized copper. (R. Raven-Hart: Before Van
Riebeeck, p. 4)&nbsp;There was a misunderstanding later when the
gentle Khoisan people changed into fearsome people. When Da Gama came to Mossel Bay, he had to
use many signs to show some ninety Khoikhoi that they had to carry on going
where they were off to. He used signs to advise them that only two indigenes
should approach them. The next day, about two hundred Khoikhoi came with about
twelve oxen and cows and four or five sheep. When Da Gama and his men went
ashore, the Khoikhoi played harmoniously on four or five flutes. The commander
told his musicians to play their trumpets, and both Khoikhoi and Da Gama’s men
danced.(R. Raven-Hart: Before Van
Riebeeck, p. 6)&nbsp;Dias killed one Khoikhoi at Mossel Bay, and
Da Gama was aware of this. So, when there was an argument about their
water-gathering, Da Gama arranged to have two small cannons firing only to show
the indigenous beings that the Portuguese were militarily stronger. The
Khoikhoi dropped their arms and their covering skins about their shoulders and
ran off.&nbsp;Before we sum up, we must mention that both
Bartolomew Dias and Vasco da Gama set up a padrâo at several places they
landed on their way in search of a sea route to India. A padrâo is a
pillar carried by early Portuguese explorers, to be set up as a claim of
Portugal to the territory. This was the attitude of all the colonists, who
appeared to think that wherever they came, there were no other than savages and
their land could just be confiscated, and they could be subdued by the violent
arms of their ‘superior’ technology.&nbsp;With both the Portuguese explorers and the
Khoikhoi at Mossel Bay, when the indigenes were uncertain or suspected a feud, they
drove their livestock inland. The Khoikhoi had advanced intuition and could
sense when there was a likelihood of ‘war,’ something that the Europeans did to
confiscate the land they had ‘won’ in war. War was the order of the day in
Europe for a long time.&nbsp;Because they could not understand each
other’s language, they resorted to signs and pointing. This is the very first characteristic
of a pidgin language where the colonists remained long enough to make this
possible. After Vasco da Gama, there were many callers at the Cape from
Portugal, England, and Holland. There were also a few from France and Denmark.
They only stopped over for fresh water and, if they were lucky, to barter for
livestock from the Khoikhoi.&nbsp;When the indigenes did not have any
livestock (Khoisan) but resorted to hunting and gathering whatever was
available, they, like the animals and birds, expected to attain food; all they
had to do was to find it. With these people, like those at St. Helena,
Da Gama made contact, and Aushumao (‘Harry’ as the Dutch renamed him) and his
clan were Hunter-gatherers. Since they were comprised of two Khoikhoi peoples,
Bushmen and Khoikhoi, we also refer to them as Khoisan.&nbsp;There are many made-up tales about Africa,
and particularly the Cape. Among them are intentionally untrue reports that the
Khoisan and Khoikhoi were lazy and uncivilized. The local people were also
accused of having no religion, while the Europeans contrasted their own violent
religion with that of the natives of the Cape. &nbsp;Forgetting their own Inquisition, the Europeans
never asked, “Did the Khoikhoi ever give anyone the death penalty?” It could
also be asked, “Who taught the Khoikhoi and San the arts and sciences of
painting, astronomy, botany, medicine, about animals, and music?” Or “Were the
Khoikhoi and San depraved by money, wars, sovereignty, riches, etc.?”&nbsp;So-called ‘misunderstandings’ were serious
to the Khoikhoi. After the Viceroy, Francisco d’Almeida, in 1510, and fifty to
eighty of his men were killed by the Khoikhoi, because they did not tolerate
the invasion of their houses and the theft of their children as slaves by the
Portuguese. We are going to see this side of the Khoikhoi further on several
times. This incident caused the Portuguese to lose interest in the Cape.&nbsp;The scaring of the Khoikhoi with gun and cannon
shots was something that the Dutch, like Van Riebeeck, wanted to use to just
seize a thousand cattle. The Seventeen Lords of the Dutch East India Company
were wisely not in favour of such action.&nbsp;We will unpack many of these incidents in
our future posts.&nbsp;28.5.2024&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 18.9.2026&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;





















































































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5.2 Khoikhoi

5.2 Kaaps(© 4th September 2020 by Peter Snyders)With
Unison Music and Literature Publisher Support&nbsp;Just
like a baby would cry with the free-flowing [a] (a), [ε] (ê) and [i] (ie)-sounds at first, with [ɔ] (ô) and [u] (oe) following when the child has started speaking, in like manner
the first (primeval) humans made their early sounds. They used these plain
vowels to form their first short and simple words. These five primes (most
active) sounds still exist in most African languages today including isiZulu
and isiXhosa. In the West, as the cultural situation changed, more sounds
(vowels) were needed. &nbsp;To accommodate the bulk of extra words, the
Western Europeans inflected (varied) these basic vowels, and so more vowel sounds
were added to the inventory of Western languages. Compare the vowel sounds in
the words: they, due, time, phone, sound, word, as, both,
and many more. These sounds are not in isiZulu and isiXhosa (isi- meaning “language”), and when
rarely found in Kora, they were certainly not in the language at the time of
the first encounters with settlers. They are more likely loans from a later
date.&nbsp;In
Africa and in Asia, such as China, Vietnam and other countries, they use melodic
tones to change the meaning of a word. Kora also uses this tonal system. &nbsp;Western
languages also use tones, but it is not part of their inventory (collection of
sounds). It also does not change the meaning of a word. For example, the sound
comes down to its lowest at the end of a sentence. This is signified with the
full stop (.). When there is a longish pause but not as long as a full stop,
they use the semi-colon (;). This tone also goes down but not as low as the
full stop. This indicates that the theme of the sentence is not yet completed;
that there are more sentences, clauses or phrases without a capital letter.&nbsp;The
following, except the question mark, is either not a tonality or the tonality
is rather subtle, but it is useful to know. This is the colon (:). It has a
slightly upwards tonation higher than the semi-colon but not as high as the
question mark. This indicates that there are some examples or extra information
to come. It would follow a meaning like ‘example’, ‘such as’ and so on.&nbsp;The
comma (,) is also a pause, but it is not as long as the semi-colon. It is lower
than the colon but not as low as the semi-colon. It can even be lower that the
semi-colon but not as low as the full stop. It is used for the speaker to pause
for a little breath after a phrase. It is also used to separate two thoughts or
phrases that could be confusedly read without the comma grouping the two
subthemes. We also as a rule use it between two vowels. &nbsp;This is just to give you an idea of
tonation in worldly languages – all of them who use it. There are, however,
some nations that take the direction of a few words moving upwards to give a
certain meaning to the words. The tones of the words can also move downwards or
in a straight line. Each increase, decrease, or maintenance of the tone would
give it a meaning. Read up on Kora tonality in the Kora book you
downloaded. The Pidgin is the simplest of languages, so tonality, clicks,
ejection sounds, nasalization, and aspiration will not form part of its
inventory. &nbsp;There is also the apostrophe (‘). In
English, it is generally used to show that two words are joined up, and the
apostrophe shows the place where the lost phoneme had been omitted. Examples
are don’t (do not), I’m (I am), and there’s (there is), it’s
(it is), etc. There is no special tonality in the apostrophe. Finally, there is
the question mark (?). It is the highest sound that shows that a question has
been asked. It does not even have to be in a complete question. It can be in
the sentence: “Huh?” &nbsp;Try these sounds out for yourself, noting
how professionals use them. Some writers use a whole page containing only one
sentence. They do this because all the sub-sentences form part of the main
theme. We lose the thread in such long sentences. So, we break up the long
sentence into sentences of no longer than seven lines (unless the last sentence
ends on the eighth). The new paragraph will have its sub-theme. We also do not
use a sentence with only one sentence unless it is a powerful sentence that can
stand alone on its own theme. &nbsp;Kora
and isiZulu and isiXhosa use clicks as well as ejectives (forceful utterances)
to accommodate extra meanings. There is therefore no need to change or add to
any of the vowels of our African languages (which includes Kaaps). Any biased
and prejudicial connotations towards our own indigenous languages because African
linguistic techniques are foreign to European colonialists, should not even be
considered. The Buddha grouped people into four. The lowest were ‘those who do
not know that they do not know.’ The Buddha recommends that we ‘shun’
[deliberate ignore] them.













































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