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Meet Denver Toroxa Breda, Khoekhoe language activist

Categories: @DigiAfricanLang, Interview, Languages

Photo provided by Denver Toroxa Breda.

In 2019 as part of a social media campaign to celebrate linguistic diversity online [1], African language activists and advocates will be taking turns managing the @DigiAfricanLang [2] Twitter account to share their experiences with the revitalization and promotion of African languages. This profile post is about Denver Toroxa Breda. (@ToroxaD [3]) and what he plans to discuss during his week as host.

Rising Voices: Please tell us about yourself.

Khoe languages and cultural Kuwiri or activist, writer advocating for the officialisation of Khoekhoe and N|uu, two of SA's First languages.

RV: What is the current status of your language on the internet and offline?

Khoekhoe is spoken in Namibia, studied at schools, and yet in SA where it originated, only 2000 speak the language, it's not official, it's not in school. N|uu has one fluent speaker, not official and at schools, it's a critically endangered language.

RV: On what topics do you plan to focus during the week that you’ll manage the @DigiAfricanLang Twitter account?

Language recognition, language revival language loss, teaching some language and interesting words.

RV: What are the main motivations for your digital activism for your language? What are your hopes and dreams for your language?

That our languages don't die, that it's taught at school's, universities, spoken by everyone in Africa.