Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal
Ernst Oswald Johannes Gotthard God Help Westphal ( born 1919 in Khalava in Northern Transvaal, South Africa, † November 27, 1990 in Bredasdorp near Cape Town ) was a South African linguist and an expert on Bantu and Khoisan languages .
Life and work
Early years and education
Westphal was born in 1919 in Khalava in the north of the Transvaal, the son of German, Evangelical Lutheran missionaries and spoke as a child fluent in German, English and Afrikaans. He also learned as a child Tshivenda, the Bantu language spoken in the region of Venda, in their initiation rites partially secret he has been introduced as a young man.
Study and entry into academic careers
Westphal studied at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg isiZulu and Sesotho with Professor Clement Martyn Doke, who is in turn until today as one of the most important linguists in the field of Bantu languages. Thus, the unified spelling of the Shona language, for example, due in substantial part to the work of Clement M. Doke. After graduating Ernst OJ worked Westphal 1942-1947. Continue on his study as a lecturer for Bantu languages
Work as a linguist
From 1949 to 1962 he worked as a researcher and lecturer at the London School of Oriental and African Studies - an institute of the University of London, where he was in 1955 with a thesis on the language of the Venda ( Tshivenda ) Also doctorate: " The Sentence in Venda ". This dissertation is remarkable, as Ernst Westphal could use virtually no external sources ( such were hardly any) has evaluated almost exclusively their own research results and for this work.
1962, he joined as a professor at the Institute for African Studies ( School of African Studies ), University of Cape Town, the professor, he was until his retirement in 1984. During this time he became one of the world's leading authorities for the clicking sound languages of the San ( Bushmen ) and Khoi Khoi ( Nama also, Orlam or Hottentots ) - Khoisan languages , many of which he fluently.
On behalf of the Portuguese Government Westphal was ( which, moreover, also fluent in Portuguese language ), involved in scientific, lexical projects in which he translated a number of ancient texts and inscriptions that had been discovered in Mozambique to Portuguese. He also collaborated with the Portuguese folklorist, Professor António de Almeida ( 1900-1984 ).
Family and Private
The Westphal family has for over a hundred years very much integrated into the rural culture of the indigenous peoples of southern Africa - particularly in the tribal life of the Venda ethnic group. His grandfather God Help Ernst Westphal was the one who had recognized the literary and political talent of the young Tswana - pupil Sol Plaatjes and later co-founder and ANC Secretary General promoted massively. Sol Plaatje was just as Westphal extraordinarily gifted in languages , saying among other things also fluent in German.
Westphal was also a co-founder of the "South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds ( SANCCOB ) ". He left two sons: Robin Peter Westphal (b. 1945) and the South African philosophy professor Jonathan Gotthard Westphal (born 1951).
Westphal died on 27 November 1990 in Bredasdorp in the Cape Overberg region and is in the small Scottish town buried Port Appin ( gael. to Apainn ). His grave stone adorns the inscription " A True Son of Venda " (Eng. " A true son of the Venda "). Two years after his death, was by Derek F. Gowlett, in honor of Ernst Westphal a commemorative publication under the title, "African linguistic Contributions: presented in honor of Ernst Westphal " published.