LING 4171: A FRICAN L ANGUAGES F INAL R EPORT 1

OtjiHimba: The Language of the Himba People

Piyali Mukherjee
@columbia.edu
October 3, 2021

This paper will cover two interesting aspects about the endangered language called
OtjiHimba, spoken by the Himba people of Northern Namibia. OtjiHimba is a dialect of the
OtjiHerero language and the Himba people are a subset of the ethnic group called Herero
[9]
. This paper uses the term Himba-Herero to indicate the larger ethnic group and uses
the term OtjiHimba-OtjiHerero to refer to the parent dialect. The first part of the paper will
cover the unique vocabulary that the Himba people use to describe colors. The second
part of the paper will discuss the presence of OtjiHimba-OtjiHerero adjectives which mean
simultaneously mean two opposing traits.

1 W HO ARE THE H IMBA ?

The Himba people are an endangered semi-nomadic pastoral community who live in
Southern Angola-Northern Namibia. Their territory is referred to as the Kunene region
or Kaokoland. They live in relative isolation from other communities, partly due to the diffi-
cult geography of the region. The terrain is prohibitively rugged and the area experiences
severe droughts. The Himba also share their land with thriving populations of lions, hyenas,
elephants, giraffes and rhinoceroses who live largely undisturbed by human activity. Their
lifestyle is threatened as tuberculosis, chronic malnutrition and the droughts destroy their
health, cattle and crops. Currently, one of their main forms of subsistence is United Nations
drought relief [1] .

The Himba-Herero arrived at Kaokoland from a south-bound migration originating

Piyali Mukherjee 1 OtjiHimba

1.1 The OtjiHerero Language 2

in the Great Lakes region of East Africa that spanned over many centuries [3] . In the middle
of the 18th century, the Herero continued southwards into South Africa and eastwards into
Botswana. The Himba settled by displacing the Damara from the Kunene region. They were
also frequently attacked by Nama and Afrikaner foragers [16] . The Himba people prefer to
live away from these particular communities but have been documented to be otherwise
highly socially dynamic and open to visitors. Inevitably, the history and sociogeography of
the Himba influence the language they speak, which brings us to OtjiHerero.

1.1 T HE OTJI H ERERO L ANGUAGE

OtjiHerero (Guthrie (1948): R30) is currently classified as a Niger-Congo -> Atlantic Congo
-> Benue Congo -> Southern Bantoid -> Bantu language. As the following map of Namibia
shows, OtjiHerero speakers are concentrated (darker blue) in the northwest Kunene region
and in Windhoek, which is the capital of Namibia.

Figure 1.1: Distribution of OtjiHerero in Namibia per Region (Wikimedia

Commons). By Gladiool - Own work. Based on data from the
Namibia 2001 Population and Housing Census., CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5740306

OtjiHerero did not have a script until German missionary Gottlieb Viehe (1839-
1901) first translated the Bible, augmenting the oral language with a Latin script. OtjiHerero
continues to flourish in schools as a primary and secondary language as well as one of the
six minority radio channels. The Wikipedia page states that there exists only one dictionary

Piyali Mukherjee 2 OtjiHimba

 3

of the language as of 2008[15] . However, cursory browsing reveals that a new dictionary was
published in 2013 [10] .

The Herero live in geographically distant regions like Windhoek and parts of
Botswana and enjoy a metropolitan lifestyle that is very different from the Himba’s own.
The OtjiHimba dialect has been identified as being "close enough" to the language (as
close as nearly a century of isolation permits). Some sources [9] claim little to no significant
grammatical or lexical deviation between the two dialects. Other sources [6] state that the
two are mutually unintelligble.

Figure 1.2: Dialects of OtjiHerero/OtjiMbanderu: OtjiHimba Classification from Media, Edu-

cation and Number of Namibian Languages by Pedro Lusakalu

Other dialects of the parent OtjiHerero have spawned over time and migrations.
The root of the this dialect tree is hotly contested [9] as the parent language must be dif-
ferentiated from its namesake metropolitan dialect. There have been strong petitions by
linguists and education policy-makers to rename the parent dialect to encompass all the
ethnic identities living in the area.

2 C OLOR P ERCEPTION A MONG THE H IMBA

This section covers the OtjiHimba color vocabulary. Live experiments of Himba participants
sorting colored boxes of green have been documented by several research experiments and
popularized by the BBC Horizon series in their episode called "Do You See What I See?" [14] .

While infants across cultures are able to detect and track large groups of color,
their ability to name and perform comparative analysis on colors improves after they have

Piyali Mukherjee 3 OtjiHimba

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learned a language [5] . Color expression in languages is important as it divides the entire
spectrum of colors that a normal human eye can perceive into labeled categories. The
effects of differential categorization across languages comes under the purview of the highly
controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis [8] .

In summary, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that a person’s world-view is shaped

predominantly by the semantic categories of their native language. This implies that some-
thing as objective as perceiving color, which physicists can prove is a result of reflecting light
waves, varies from person to person. While genetic differences may contribute significantly
to these different perceptions, it should be noted that the average genetic variation across
any two people in the world is about 0.1% [7] . Color-perception studies across languages
have been pivotal in changing perspectives on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as it appears
that native languages do have a strong role in determining what color-groups a speaker can
differentiate and cannot.

Unlike English which provides eleven color categories, OtjiHimba provides only
[12]
five. Four are innate and the fifth called burou has been borrowed from OtjiHerero .
OtjiHimba allows for a differentiation across categories of green (which an English speaker
might not be sensitive to), but does not permit a differentiation between green and blue.

OtjiHimba Color Term English Broad Spectrum Representation

"serandu" Reds, Oranges and Pinks
"dumbu" Beige, Yellows, some Light Greens
"zoozu" All dark colors including black
"vapa" All light colors including white
"burou" (borrowed) Some Greens, Blues and Purple

Table 2.1: OtjiHimba Color Terms

With a color representation as provided in the table, it appears that there is a

division between variants of green but not between greens and blues, which may explain
why the Himba are unable to distinguish as such. Moreover, the Himba people call the sky
the equivalent of "black" and water the equivalent of "white". This categorization scheme
applies across Himba children as well as Himba adults in the presence of a variety of vastly
different color stimuli in differently-colored environments. This research has provided
strong support for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which has been captured in the promisingly
titled "Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis" [13] .

Piyali Mukherjee 4 OtjiHimba

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Strong opposition to this recently-garnered support soon followed from the dis-
covery of new color categories in OtjiHerero. OtjiHerero has two additional color categories
called grine (green) and pinge (pink) which are absent in OtjiHimba. Several Non-Whorfian
psychologists believed that the human cognition of the color space was invariant of the
language of the perceiver [2] . They claimed that the adoption of new color categories in
OtjiHerero was evidence that eventually the Himba would be able to perceive the full color
space and describe it using vocabulary analogous to that of English speakers. Roberson et al.
rebuts this observation in [12] with

"It is possible that the 11-color organization yields the optimal combination of discrim-
inability and cognitive economy for recognition and representation of large numbers of
colors. If so, languages with fewer terms would gain by introducing or borrowing new
terms when increasing technological advances or contact with other cultures introduces
a greater need to communicate more precisely about color."

The argument highlights one of the most important distinguishing factors between Otji-
Herero and OtjiHimba. OtjiHerero is spoken in the metropolitan Windhoek, where it is has
been in continuous contact with Afrikaans, German and English. Therefore, it is more likely
that OtjiHerero has borrowed these terms into the lexicon and morphed into a different
language whereas OtjiHimba’s relative isolation has preserved its unique color categories
over time.

3 E NANTIOSEMY IN OTJI H IMBA -OTJI H ERERO

This section now looks beyond the evident differences across OtjiHimba and OtjiHerero, and
identifies a trait that is similar to both dialects. Some OtjiHimba-OtjiHerero adjectives are
antonyms of themselves, a phenomenon called enantiosemy. This property is not unique to
the dialects as English itself contains several examples, like cleaved which is simultaneously
"separated" and "united".

OtjiHimba culture is predominantly filled with adjectives and nouns that are based
on their pastoral experiences in the wilderness of Kaokoland. They tend to attribute people
with behaviors and mannerisms that are exhibited by the animals they share territory with.
For example, the noun elephant (ondjou) when used as an epithet for people means "one
who bears strength, wisdom and stability" but when ondjou is featured in other descriptions,

Piyali Mukherjee 5 OtjiHimba

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the term implies unintelligent behavior. Another common animal-based adjective in the
language is the description of the hyena (ekundi) as "slow, stupid, harmless, pretentious or
naïve" (omayova) [4] . This is a surprisingly benign characterization since hyenas are the most
ruthless predators that frequently attack Himba cattle. Neither term is used as a compliment,
but omayova is also bestowed on negligent people, homosexual men or cannibals.

Not all of these auto-antonyms derive from observations of nature. Some of the
most concerning derivations of auto-antonyms come from the people’s reflection of their
own ethnic identities. The word himba used to mean "one who boasts". After centuries of
persecution, oppression and administrative neglect, himba has come to mean "one who
begs"[3] . It is extrapolated that the word may stem from "one who holds out their hand" but
cultural and historical interpretations have changed the semantics significantly. Similarly,
the Herero derive their name from herera which used to mean "the happy ones" but has now
come to mean "the impostors".

A Whorfian analysis could infer that centuries of oppression and starvation have
induced fear into the community, which may have contributed to collective lowered self-
esteem and loss of prestige in ethno-linguistic identity. The Herero people were the first
to survive a German attempt at genocide, under the command of General von Trotha
(1904). The Himba have survived Nama foragers who have stripped many of their cattle, still
perceived to be the only source of wealth. Unfortunately, the effects of these incidents on
the Himba psyche and eventually their language, have not been as extensively documented
as their color-perception abilities.

Several anthropological works [11] on the Herero bear record of the effect these
events have had on OtjiHerero. Herero women interviewed in 1985 often describe their
traditional clothing (extremely long Victorian gowns with bright printed patterns) with the
adjective okuriyanga, which simultaneously means "defensive, protective" and "cowering,
groveling" [11]. They believed that their own tradition held them back from being accepted
into modern society, like the metaphoric gowns which restricted fast movements.

Unlike Himba color categories, which appear to be internal to the language, and
affect how the Himba see the world, this enantiosemy appears to have stemmed from
historical events that the Himba-Herero have experienced and then internalized into the
dialects.

Piyali Mukherjee 6 OtjiHimba

References 7

R EFERENCES

[1] Suzanne Beukes. Namibian villagers grapple with the worst drought in three decades.
UNICEF, Aug 2013.

[2] Marc H Bornstein. On the development of color naming in young children: Data and
theory. Brain and language, 26(1):72–93, 1985.

[3] Alain Bourrillon. The Himba of Namibia - Those Who Boast. [Video File (50 mins)] by
Samarka Productions and ArchH’Organisation, 1995, 1997.

[4] David P Crandall. Himba animal classification and the strange case of the hyena. Africa,
72(02):293–311, 2002.

[5] Anna Franklin, Ally Clifford, Emma Williamson, and Ian Davies. Color term knowledge
does not affect categorical perception of color in toddlers. Journal of experimental child
psychology, 90(2):114–141, 2005.

[6] Hilde Gunnink and Koen Bostoen. Bantu langugages of southern africa: an overview.
In ’Speaking (of ) Khoisan’: a symposium reviewing southern African prehistory, 2015.

[7] Lynn B Jorde et al. Genetic variation and human evolution, 2003.

[8] Paul Kay and Willett Kempton. What is the sapir-whorf hypothesis? American anthro-
pologist, 86(1):65–79, 1984.

[9] Pedro Lusakalalu. Media, education and the count of namibian languages. Journal of
Namibian Studies : History Politics Culture, 2(0):85–101, 2014.

[10] Nduvaa Erna Nguako. The new otjiherero dictionary. Bloomington, Indiana: Author-
House, 2013.

[11] Karla Poewe. The namibian herero: A history oftheirpsychological disintegration and
survival, 1985.

[12] Debi Roberson, Jules Davidoff, Ian RL Davies, and Laura R Shapiro. The development
of color categories in two languages: a longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 133(4):554, 2004.

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References 8

[13] Debi Roberson, Jules Davidoff, Ian RL Davies, and Laura R Shapiro. Color categories:
Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis. Cognitive psychology, 50(4):378–411,
2005.

[14] Sophie Robinson. BBC Horizon: Do you see what I see? "The Himba Tribe", Aug 2011.

[15] Johannes Jurgens Viljoen and Theophilus Kauvazeua Kamupingene. Otjiherero dictio-
nary. Gamsberg Macmillan, 1983.

[16] Elizabeth Williams. People of namibia: Damara, Herero, Himba. Footprint Travelguides
Namibia, Jan 2015.

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