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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Carl Meinhof and the German Influence on Nicholas van Warmelo's Ethnological and Linguistic Writing, 1927-1935
Author:Pugach, SarahISNI
Year:2004
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:30
Issue:4
Period:December
Pages:825-845
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
Germany
Subjects:anthropology
linguistics
History and Exploration
Anthropology and Archaeology
Bibliography/Research
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
About person:Nicolaas Jacobus Van Warmelo (1904-1989)ISNI
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/4133886
Abstract:The influence of German linguist Carl Meinhof on the work of his South African student, Nicolaas van Warmelo, has been underexplored. They met in the 1920s, when van Warmelo went to the University of Hamburg to study under Meinhof. Van Warmelo returned to South Africa, where he became Government Ethnologist in 1930. Even so, Meinhof and van Warmelo remained close, and from the late 1920s collaborated on the English translation of Meinhof's magnum opus, 'Grundriss einer Lautlehre der Bantusprachen' (Introduction to the phonology of the Bantu languages). This book, which in its English translation offered phonetic descriptions of six Bantu languages considered important to British and South African colonialists, was completed shortly before the appearance of van Warmelo's 'Preliminary survey of the Bantu tribes of South Africa' (1935). The present author demonstrates that the influence of the 'Grundriss' and other texts by Meinhof was evident in van Warmelo's ethnological writings. Moreover, the classification of African languages and 'tribes' as carried out by Meinhof and van Warmelo was very political; in van Warmelo's case, fixing 'tribal' ethnicity provided order to what, for whites, may have appeared a jumbled mass of peoples whose relationships to one another were not immediately discernible. This was perhaps significant in an era when issues of detribalization and urbanization were of increasing concern to white South Africans. The certainty of van Warmelo's ethnic constructions, even if these were still not entirely worked out, may have suggested a direction for resolving these perceived crises. Further, Meinhof's impact on van Warmelo points to a need to examine more fully the role of German philology and anthropology in shaping South African anthropology in general and Afrikaner 'volkekunde' in particular. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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