THE GRAMMAR OF ISIXHOSA

392pp., paperback, Stellenbosch, 2016

"Oosthuysen's research is ground-breaking in the sense that he has reinvented isiXhosa grammar from an Africanist perspective, taking into account isiXhosa as a language in its own right rather than influenced by Western missionary perspectives and categories. It has been such a great pleasure to work with a man of such wisdom and great knowledge, in-depth mother-tongue knowledge that has come from a lifetime of service to a language and its peoples." Russel Kaschula, NRF SARChl Chair in the Intellectualisation of African Languages, Multilingualism and Education at Rhodes University

JC(Koos)Oosthuysen received his primary education in an isiXhosa-medium school in Pondoland. For 13 years he was the pastor of an isiXhosa-speaking congregation and taught isiXhosa to staff. He was secretary of the committee of the Bible Society of South Africa that transcribed the 1942 version of the isiXhosa Bible into the Standard Orthography and then spent 21 years coordinating the production of the 1996 isiXhosa Bible. He was awarded an Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu prize for his work in Bible translation. In 29013 he was awarded a Phd in African Languages at Rhodes University for his dissertation on the grammar of the 1942 isiXhosa Bible.