A new inscription in the southern African language lxam has been carved into Rhodes House at Oxford University, acknowledging the suffering and labor of those who contributed to Cecil Rhodes’ wealth.
The lxam inscription was carved by UK stone mason Fergus Wessel, who works in response to a longstanding English Arts and Crafts tradition. The inscription’s handcrafted aspect responds to the saying’s reference to the difficult labour of southern African peoples that produced Rhodes’s wealth.
A statement “remembering and honouring the labour and suffering of those who worked to create this wealth” has been translated into the southern African language lxam and carved into the stone parapet of a new convention centre within the building.
Rhodes studied towards a degree in law at Oxford from 1876, taking eight years to complete it as he kept having to return to South Africa to look after his mining interests. He set up the Rhodes Scholarship in his will, so that male graduates from around the empire might benefit from an Oxford education. Women were included from 1978.
At the same time, his diamond mining enterprise rested on black land expropriation, which is why his legacy has been contested in recent years.
lxam is now a sleeping language, meaning that it is no longer used by any group as a mother tongue. It was spoken until the early 1900s by descendants of the Khoesan peoples and Afrikaners of the Northern Cape. It was famously recorded by the linguists Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd at the end of the 1800s in Cape Town, where a number of lxam men were incarcerated at the Breakwater prison, itself a symbol of colonial conflict.
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Khoekhoegowab and other languages of northern South Africa, southern Namibia and Botswana, still spoken today, share complicated histories with lxam. The language lives on in the work of several leading South African authors, like Antjie Krog and Sylvia Vollenhoven. It’s found in the motto on the South African coat-of-arms where it reads “diverse people unite” – and now in the Oxford inscription.
We are scholars of literary and storytelling histories including those of Afrikaans and lxam. Rhodes House tasked us to find ways of translating the inscription into lxam, in consultation with speakers and teachers of related languages that are still used.
With its marked click consonants like ! and l, the lxam inscription brings an unmistakable African presence to the heart of Oxford. The carving signifies resistance to the takeover, control and possession of other lands and people that underpinned the colonial project.
Latin meets lxam
Built in a monumental style by British architect Herbert Baker, Rhodes House is the home of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships and stands as a memorial to Rhodes’ memory. Baker worked extensively in South Africa, where he designed the Union Buildings, the seat of the country’s government.
Reported by allAfrica
