Heritage Cases

Historic Value 5.1.1 The grave of Magrieta Jantjies is of Historic Value as it shows a pattern of history which is important to not just the Khoisan community, but to the South African community. While extinction of language is often documented as a past event, to witness it unfold in democratic dispensation as a lived community experience reflects the depth of legacy of apartheid and colonial rule. While fragments of the N|uu language are in the process of being recovered, several words of from its vocabulary have been lost thus extinguishing part of the richness and diversity of our heritage tapestry. Thus, her grave is of cultural significance as it foregrounds a forgotten aspect of South African history. 5.1.2 As the N|uu language and its speakers reach their twilight years, the grave Magreita Janjties being one of the last speakers of the language bring into the public consciousness important aspects about the South African past. Near extinction of the language speaks to the legacy of colonialism, land dispossession, coerced assimilation, forced labour, neglect and migration amongst others. 6.2 Social Value Language contributes to a community’s sense of place. Indeed “In the twentieth century variationist sociolinguists developed techniques to correlate language use with speaker’s alignment to space (considering the effects of social practice and identity processes on their orientations).” Thus, memorialisation of the grave of Magrieta Jantjties brings into focus a diminishing community and culture’s sense of place. The inscription of the N|uu Language on a grave of one the last community members to speak the language (the first in the country) was a milestone in contributing to restoring to the N|uu. In its discussion of the N|uu, the UNESCO notes, “A lost language is not only lost cultural heritage, it is also lost traditional knowledge, such as precious knowledge about medicinal herbs or local species or environment. Thus, with each language that disappears, humanity is impoverished in manifold ways.”