Katutura, a Place Where We Stay: Life in a Post-Apartheid Township in Namibia

Urban Youth Style or Emergent Urban Vernacular? The Rise of Namibia's Kasietaal

“…The Blacks were spatially distributed according to their assigned ethnolinguistic background, namely, Ovambo, Herero, Kavango, Damara, Nama, Caprivian or Tswana. The Coloureds fell into two main designated ethnic groups, namely the Basters and the descendants of 20th century Cape Coloured migrants (Stell 2016; see further Pendleton 1993).…”

“…Under German rule, Windhoek's indigenous population mainly consisted of Hereros and Damaras, who resided on the fringes of the European settlement (Peyroux 2004). During the 1960s, the Blacks and Coloureds were resettled in the newly built Katutura and Khomasdal areas, respectively, with the former systematically planned into ethnic blocks (Pendleton 1993). Meanwhile, immigration from the Oshiwambo-speaking districts, where most of SWA's population was concentrated, was contained: Ovambos were in most cases only allowed to reside temporarily in southern urban areas as (male) contract workers.…”

“…Only one (White Afrikaans-speaking) male informant could be recruited at the private school. In the older control sample, the Coloured informant is female and the Ovambo informant male.4 Ethical approval for this study was obtained under the reference HSEARS20200329005.5 The details given by the informants were checked for their consistency with Wagner (1951) andPendleton (1993).6 Informants are referred to via abbreviations of their self-reported ethnonyms joined with "F" (female) or "M" (male) , and an identifying number. The interviews were conducted in Afrikaans or Otjiherero.7 In pre-colonial times, Windhoek's site was located on the boundary between Oorlam and Herero spheres of influence.…”

Dimensions of sociolinguistic distinction in postcolonial ethnic diversity: Folk perceptions of language across Namibia's rural/urban divide

“…The knowledge and use of indigenous languages was confined to intra-ethnic contexts, suggesting little scope for inter-ethnic amalgamation (Prinsloo et al, 1982). Additionally, official ethnonyms had become part of folk taxonomies while lying at the core of deeply ingrained ethnoracial stereotyping practices (Pendleton, 1996). One factor likely to have had a transformative effect on post-independence ethnolinguistic boundaries is the spread of English, associated with imageries of social advancement, allied with nation-building discourses that promote ethnic neutrality, and emergent Black urban middle classes (Harlech Jones, 1991;Fosse, 2004;Melber, 2015).…”

“…Additionally, mention has been made of a specifically urban category of Ovambos, derogatorily referred to as Ombwiti (an Oshiwambo word for 'rootless'), who were already noted in the pre-independence period for being more multilingual than their rural peers (cf. Pendleton et al, 2012;Prinsloo et al, 1982). Against this background of social transformation, it is open to question how salient traditional ethnolinguistic distinctions remain and to what extent they may perceptually combine with ethnically neutral sociolinguistic distinctions.…”