Words and sentences

Dorothea Bleek had a very systematic and comparative approach in her attempt to record as much as she could from as many Bushman languages as possible (see Weintroub 2010, 130). This is evident in her main work, A Bushman Dictionary, finally published in 1956, almost ten years after her death. The dictionary combines the work of her father and aunt before her with her own contributions from more than 30 years of fieldwork. Her comparative approach is, however, quite clear even from her first notes taken in 1910 and 1911.

Most of these notes are extensive lists of words and sentences, and often the same words and phrases recur time and again. Her efforts to implement a systematic process of recording amongst different people in different places are illustrated in book BC151.A3.005, pages 372– 382. For example, on page 382 she presents a table of words in English, colonial /Xam, Langeberg and southern Kalahari //n, /auni, Katia and !kun in columns next to each other. Some of these words, noted down and repeated throughout the different notebooks, are related to dress, ornamentation and clothing (figure II.12).

Many of the lists of words seem to have been taken down as Bleek and her informants pointed to different things in their immediate surroundings. The words are always written in the relevant Bushman language with the English translation next to them or immediately underneath. I do not reproduce the Bushman words for each example given as my ignorance of these languages would most probably result in an endless number of errors. Lists like the following one, from the very first notebook taken down among Langeberg Bushmen at the Mount Temple Farm in September 1910, are typical, particularly of places where Bleek was still not familiar with the language.

In another example, taken down a week later, with slightly different spellings in the Bushman //n language, the word for ‘petticoat’ is now translated as ‘back kaross’.

Dorothea was evidently making sure that she had got it right, or was eager to correct her first recording of the words.