ABSTRACT The current questions in academia regarding Africanisation of knowledge emanate from a historical context, where focus is on Africans as subjects rather than masters in the production of knowledge. The question of how Europeans used indigenous African languages since their arrival in Africa to subjugate native populations shrewdly, has been the subject of debates on language for some time now. The extent of the subjugation was evident in the prescription, through grammar rules and linguistics, of how the languages of the indigenous population were to be written. In this article, I give firstly the historical context of the grammaticalness of isiXhosa oral form, as observed by missionaries; through their writings that document their early contact with amaXhosa. Secondly, I discuss the context of the development of isiXhosa and the prescriptiveness of the grammar rules adopted in describing the spoken form of the language. In the third section, I discuss the early isiXhosa-speaking literates and their writings that defied the newly prescribed grammar rules— by focusing on the works of Gqoba, who was editor of Isigidimi sama Xosa (The Kafir Express), a newspaper in which he also published his writings between 1873 and 1888. The conclusion is drawn that the early grammar rules and the subsequent linguistics study of isiXhosa did not reflect the spoken form of the language; but were rather designed in a way that made the missionaries learn the language easily, in order to communicate with amaXhosa—therefore, they developed it in a manner that served their own interests, and not the interest of the native population. Therefore, my thesis is that the study of the texts written by native speakers should serve as a primary base for Africans to move away from being subjects to being masters in the production of knowledge.

中文翻译：

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探索 isiXhosa 的写作历史：一个有机的还是一个工程的过程？

摘要 当前学术界关于知识非洲化的问题源于历史背景，其中重点是非洲人作为知识生产的主体而不是主人。自从欧洲人抵达非洲以来，他们如何使用非洲土著语言来精明地征服土著人口的问题，一直是语言辩论的主题。通过语法规则和语言学，土著居民的语言将如何书写，这种征服的程度是显而易见的。在这篇文章中，我首先给出了传教士所观察到的伊西科萨语口头形式的语法性的历史背景；通过他们的著作记录了他们与阿玛科萨的早期接触。第二，我讨论了 isiXhosa 发展的背景以及在描述语言口语时采用的语法规则的规定性。在第三部分，我讨论了早期说伊西科萨语的文人及其违反新规定的语法规则的著作——重点是 Gqoba 的作品，他是 Isigidimi sama Xosa（卡菲尔快车）的编辑，他在该报纸上发表了还在 1873 年至 1888 年间发表了他的著作。得出的结论是，伊西科萨语的早期语法规则和随后的语言学研究并未反映该语言的口语形式；而是以一种使传教士轻松学习语言的方式设计，以便与阿玛科萨人交流——因此，他们以一种为自己的利益服务的方式开发了它，而不是为当地居民的利益服务。