This project has been beset throughout by many difficulties, so that it has taken far longer to bring it to fruition than initially expected. This makes me all the more grateful for the tolerance that has come my way from members of the Koranna and Griqua community in Bloemfontein in whose midst the book was first conceived; and for the patience and loyal support I have been blessed to receive from my dear husband Renfrew, and our two adored daughters, Camilla and Aurora. Apart from the members of my own small family, my staunchest supporters were my mother Frerna and my beloved brother Marius; and I know how proud they would have been to see this work finished.
I have been fortunate to find a warmly supportive academic home as a Research Associate in the Department of General Linguistics at Stellenbosch University since 2013, and for their gracious collegiality I am deeply grateful to Christine Anthonissen, Johan Oosthuizen and Frenette Southwood.
The project could not have been completed without financial support, and for this I am most thankful to the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, who in 2011 awarded us a small grant for the purpose of carrying out the critically urgent fieldwork component of the project. Greatly needed additional support came from Mark Kornbluh, the Dean of Arts and Science at the University of Kentucky, in the form of an invitation to spend a semester there in the Department of Linguistics as a Visiting Professor in 2015.
In the absence of any other practical support, I have largely been sustained by the unflagging kindness and encouragement of good friends and colleagues. I believe they know who they are, but the list certainly includes Roger Lass, Anne Solomon, the members of the Qing-Orpen Project (John Wright, Jill Weintroub, José-Manuel de Prada Samper, Jeremy Hollmann and Justine Wintjes), Erin Pretorius, Kate Huddlestone, Alex Andrason, Erica George, Bonny Sands, and Kerry Jones; as well as Horst Kleinschmidt and Christine Crowley, Geoff Budlender and Aninka Claassens, Stephen Laufer, Barbara Nurse, Colin and Agnes Darch, and Sheila Barsel. Hospitable friends who made our stay in Kentucky a thoroughly enjoyable experience include Mark Kornbluh and Mimi Behar, Andrew Hippisley, Mel Coffee, Carol Wilcher, Kathi Kern, Kate Black, Sue Roberts and her family, Lisa Cligget and her family, Steve and Joanna Davis, and Stan Brunn. Of course there are a great many others, and I hope none will be offended if I have omitted a name through the poorness of my own memory.
I am most grateful also to Hetta Pieterse and Sharon Boshoff at Unisa Press for their enthusiastic interest in the project, and to my old comrade Omar Badsha at SA History Online, whose offer to assist with the electronic aspects of the publication came at a time when my spirits were once again at a low ebb.
Chapter 1: The linguistic classification of Kora
Chapter 2: Sources of the Cape Khoekhoe and Kora records Vocabularies, Language Data and Texts
Chapter 3: The Sounds of Kora (with sound clips)
Chapter 4: The Structures of Kora
Chapter 5: The Heritage texts of the Korana people
Chapter 6: A Kora-English Dictionary, with English-Kora index