Clement M. Doke

Clement Martyn Doke (born May 16, 1893 in Bristol , Great Britain; † February 24, 1980 in East London , South Africa) was a South African linguist who mainly dealt with African languages . He recognized that the grammatical structures of the Bantu languages differed greatly from the European languages and was one of the first Africanists to abandon the Eurocentric approach to language description. A prolific writer, he has published numerous grammars, dictionaries, comparative papers, and a history of Bantu linguistics.

Missionary in Lambaland

The Doke family had been involved in the missionary work of the Baptist Church for generations . His father, Pastor Joseph J. Doke, had left England in 1882 for South Africa, where he met and married Agnes Biggs. They returned temporarily to England, where Clement was born the third of four children. The family then moved to New Zealand and finally back to South Africa in 1903, where they last settled in Johannesburg.

At the age of 18, Clement earned a bachelor's degree from Transvaal University College in Pretoria . He decided to devote his life to missionary work. In 1913 he accompanied his father on a trip to northwestern Rhodesia to an area called Lambaland, now known as Ilamba. It lies on the watershed of the Congo and the Zambezi , at that time part of it was in Northern Rhodesia and the other part in the Belgian Congo . To the east, the Cape-Cairo Railway ran through the area, but otherwise travelers mostly had to walk.

Pastor William Arthur Phillips of the Nyasa Industrial Mission in Blantyre had built a Baptist mission station there in 1905, which served an area of 65,000 square kilometers and 50,000 inhabitants. The Dokes were to find out if the mission in Lambaland could be taken over by the Baptist Union of South Africa . During this trip, Doke's father became infected with typhus and died a little later ( Gandhi attended the memorial service and spoke to the mourners). Clement took on the role of his father.

The South African Baptists decided to take over the Kafulafuta mission station, with Pastor Phillips remaining there as superintendent. Clement Doke returned to Kafulafuta as a missionary in 1914; his sister Olive followed him two years later.

The lamba language

Doke was frustrated with his inability to communicate with the Lamba. Only a translation of the Book of Jonah and a collection of 47 hymns were available in writing. However, he quickly mastered the language and published his first book Ifintu Fyakwe Lesa (God's Things, An Introduction to Knowledge of the Scriptures) on Lamba in 1917 . To complete his language studies, he enrolled in the Transvaal University College branch in Johannesburg for an MA degree. His master's thesis was published as The Grammar of the Lamba language . This book is still in traditional grammatical terms, as Doke had not yet developed his innovative method of analyzing and describing the Bantu languages. His later Textbook of Lamba Grammar is far superior in this regard.

Clement Doke was also interested in ethnology. In 1931 The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia (Die Lamba Nordrhodesiens) appeared, which is still one of the most outstanding ethnographic descriptions of the peoples of Central Africa. For Doke, literacy was part of evangelism because people needed to read to understand the message of the Bible. But it wasn't until his retirement that he was able to complete the translation of the Bible in Lamba, which was published under the title Amasiwi AwaLesa (The Words of God) in 1959.

Witwatersrand University

In 1919 he married Hilda Lehmann, who accompanied him back to Lambaland. They both contracted malaria while at work, and the doctors forbade her to stay in Lambaland. Clement Doke also realized that he could no longer expect himself to work in the fields and left in 1921. He was recruited by the newly established University of the Witwatersrand . To qualify as a lecturer, the family moved to England, where he enrolled at the School of Oriental and African Studies . His main languages were Lamba and Luba , but since there was no suitable examiner, he eventually had to switch to Zulu .

Doke began his work at the new Faculty of Bantu Studies at the Witwatersrand University in 1923. In 1925 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the phonetics of the Zulu language and promoted to senior lecturer . In 1931 he was appointed to the chair for Bantu studies and thus also headed the faculty for Bantu studies. This faculty acted as a catalyst for the admission of black Africans to the university: As early as 1925, a limited number was admitted to the summer course for African studies for the first time. Doke also supported the hiring of Benedict Wallet Vilakazi as he believed that having a native speaker was essential to language acquisition. It sparked a storm of public indignation. Together they published the Zulu-English dictionary, which first appeared in 1948. It is still one of the best examples of the lexicography of a Bantu language.

The later South African linguistics professor Dr. Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal among his students, who made a name for himself in the 1950s as a lecturer and professor at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (an institute at the University of London ), as a leading global expert on Bantu and Khoisan languages .

At the request of the government of Southern Rhodesia , Doke examined the dialectal range of variation in the national languages and made recommendations for a "Unified Shona ", which became the basis for standard Shona. He worked out a uniform spelling based on the Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika dialects. Doke's spelling was never fully accepted, however, and the South African government introduced an alternate spelling, spelling Shona with two competing spellings between 1935 and 1955.

During his tenure, Doke developed and promoted a method of linguistic analysis and description of the Bantu languages based on the structure of these languages. This “Doke model” remains one of the dominant models for linguistic work in South and Central Africa to this day. His classification of the Bantu languages formed the dominant view of the relationships between African languages for a long time. Doke was also one of the pioneers in the description of the click consonants in the Khoisan and Bantu languages and developed a number of phonetic symbols for them (see: History of click spelling ).

Doke worked at the University of Witwatersrand until his retirement in 1953. In 1972 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University and the University of Witwatersrand.

The former missionary always remained associated with the Baptist Church. He was elected President of the South African Baptist Union in 1949 and spent a year visiting churches and mission stations. He used his inaugural address to condemn the newly introduced apartheid legislation: “I seriously warn our government that the spirit behind its apartheid laws and the way in which they introduce discriminatory measures of all kinds today will bring a disaster to our beautiful country . "

Selected publications

Ifintu Fyakwe Lesa (God's Things, An Introduction to the Knowledge of the Scriptures; in Lamba), 1917.
The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia: A Study of their Customs and Beliefs . London: George G. Harrap, 1931.
Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects . Government of Southern Rhodesia: Government Blue Book, 1931.
Bantu linguistic terminology . London; New York Longmans, Green, 1935.
Textbook of Lamba Grammar . Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1938.
Outline grammar of Bantu . Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 1943.
Zulu-English Dictionary . Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1948. (together with Benedict Wallet Vilakazi)
The Southern Bantu languages . London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1954.
Amasiwi AwaLesa (Bible translation into Lamba). 1959.
Contributions to the history of Bantu linguistics . Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1961. (together with DT Cole)
Trekking in South Central Africa 1913-1919 . Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1993.

Individual evidence

↑ Gowlett, Derek F., " African linguistic contributions: presented in honor of Ernst Westphal ," Via Africa Ltd. 1992
^ Westphal, Ernst OJ “ The Linguistic Prehistory of Southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot and Bantu Linguistic Relationships ”, Oxford University Press, 1963
^ " Khoisan Languages. " (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 20, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.bridica.com/topic/Khoisan-languages
^ Michael Everson : Proposal to add phonetic click characters to the UCS. (PDF) ISO / IEC JTC1 / SC2 / WG2, Document N2790, June 10, 2004, accessed on October 7, 2013 (in English, as of March 2020, this proposal has not yet been decided.).

personal data
SURNAME	Doke, Clement M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Doke, Clement Martyn (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	South African linguist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 16, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bristol , UK
DATE OF DEATH	February 24, 1980
Place of death	East London , South Africa

[Gowlett-1] Gowlett, Derek F., " African linguistic contributions: presented in honor of Ernst Westphal ," Via Africa Ltd. 1992

[2] Westphal, Ernst OJ “ The Linguistic Prehistory of Southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot and Bantu Linguistic Relationships ”, Oxford University Press, 1963

[3] " Khoisan Languages. " (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 20, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.bridica.com/topic/Khoisan-languages

[N2790-4] Michael Everson : Proposal to add phonetic click characters to the UCS. (PDF) ISO / IEC JTC1 / SC2 / WG2, Document N2790, June 10, 2004, accessed on October 7, 2013 (in English, as of March 2020, this proposal has not yet been decided.).