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A COUNTRY’S history, changing moods, mistakes and successes are best told in the stories its people have told or written – they give the country its voice.

In South Africa, it is no surprise that that voice is multilingual, but it extends beyond the many official languages to the 29 languages and dialects – most of which have long been silenced – of the Khoi and the San.

From the time she first set eyes on intriguing Bushman rock art in the Drakensberg Mountains almost 20 years ago, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University professor of literature Helize van Vuuren has been interested in the history and culture of the San, their rock art, and narratives.

“The Khoi and the San have many stories to tell – intensely linked to South Africa’s history and politics. We can benefit so much from rediscovering their wisdom and expertise,” said Van Vuuren, whose research saw her recognised as NMMU’s Faculty of Arts Researcher of the Year in 2007.

Van Vuuren’s grounding in comparative literature – comparing similarly themed literature in English, Afrikaans and Dutch – meant the jump to new literature in a new tongue was exciting rather than daunting.

“Languages should not be studied in ghettoes. At universities, language departments are starting to merge, but the borders between the different languages are still very strong.”

She heads the newly amalgamated department of languages and literature at NMMU – which incorporates English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa, together with French.

Van Vuuren’s inclusive approach to languages dates back to the 1980s, when Westville University poet and professor Johan van Wyk pioneered a project titled “Rethinking South African Literature”. At a 1995 symposium bringing together literature experts from the main language groups in the country, Leon de Kock (now director of the School of Languages at Wits University) “stressed we should let go of the master narratives of South African literature and listen to the smaller regional stories to get the bigger picture”.

Van Vuuren has a handful of 19th century researchers to thank for access into the still enigmatic world of the San, including the Afrikaans writers GR von Wielligh and Eugene Marais (who respectively wrote Boesman-Stories and Dwaalstories in the 1920s), but above all the German philologist Wilhelm Bleek and his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd. Bleek developed the orthography to transcribe the language of the /Xam Bushmen (signs to represent especially the complicated five clicks). After Bleek died in 1875, Lloyd continued translating into English the stories recorded in /Xam until her death in 1913.

During the same period, in the late 1800s, Von Wielligh recorded /Xam stories in the north-western Cape through the medium of the /Xam Bushmen’s second language, Afrikaans. Articles published by Van Vuuren about his research in 1995 sparked interest from South African astronomers Auke Slotegraaf and Willie Koorts, who contacted her for information for a conference on ethno-astrology. “The San wrote many stories about the stars. The skies were still very clear in those days, the San probably had acute eyesight, and the indigenous knowledge of early people was excellent.”

Van Vuuren said: “San and Khoi people are still here but they are unrecognisable ... Modern civilisation romanticises them as exotic relics from prehistoric times, but they live among us – classified as coloured, Afrikaans-speaking – almost invisible in the case of farm workers, or elsewhere as the poorest of the poor with little future prospect or hope of survival.

“However, there is an ethnic revival in South Africa, and people are rediscovering their roots.”