AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | 'A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs': Missionary Language-Learning in Mid-Nineteenth Century Natal |
| Author: | Gilmour, Rachael |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 33 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Period: | September |
| Pages: | 521-538 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | South Africa Natal |
| Subjects: | missions Zulu language learning identity 1850-1859 1860-1869 Religion and Witchcraft History and Exploration colonialism Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070701475294 |
| Abstract: | This article examines responses to the Zulu language among missionaries in Natal in the 1850s and 1860s, addressing their relationship not only to the work of colonization, but also to missionaries' own evangelical self-conception. It argues that for many missionaries the experience of second-language learning came to be definitive of their evangelical identity. In a positive sense, learning to speak Zulu was considered as the indispensable key to the central tasks of mission, whether primary attention was given to preaching, translation, or interpreting 'the minds and modes of thought' of Zulu-speakers. However, attitudes to the Zulu language were driven as much by anxiety as by a sense of confidence, or cultural and religious superiority. The insecurities commonly felt by novice language-learners were sometimes exacerbated as missionaries were exposed to censure or ridicule by the Zulu-speakers they sought to convert, and concerns about the sinful nature of the 'unsaved' Zulu were mapped on to attitudes to language. This article thus demonstrates some of the ways in which missionaries established, reinforced, or reconsidered their own evangelical identities by means of their relationship to the Zulu language, and explores some of the worries and fears that underpinned their conceptions of language-learning. The themes of laughter and contamination symbolize in different ways the dangers which language-learning could pose to missionaries' sense of self, power, or propriety. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |
