The value of dictionaries in preserving cultural heritage: A case study of Albert Knopt’s dictionary ( A Kaffir–English Dictionary 1899)

Dictionaries are an essential part of education, language acquisition and preservation of cultural heritage. Their potential, however, has more frequently in African contexts been influenced by colonial histories and uneven traditions of lexicography. This article presents a case study of Albert Knopt’s A Kaffir–English Dictionary (1899) in order to investigate the educational and cultural content of dictionaries. Although the dictionary itself encapsulates the colonial mindset with the barriers of offensive terminology, it also captures the linguistic and cultural information of isiXhosa towards the end of the 19th century. Based on qualitative textual analysis, the article outlines the dual nature of the dictionary, which is both a blemished pedagogical tool to learn a language and a cultural repository of proverbs, figurative expressions, idioms and ethnographic notes. The study concludes by making a case on the dual-model approach in African lexicography: one characterised by learner clarity and the other by the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.