291 19 Will there be written literature in Ju | ’hoansi, a Khoesan language of Namibia? Kerry Jones and Megan Biesele INTRODUCTION It has been generally agreed by educators and linguists around the world that the best approach to education and literacy is via the student’s mother tongue (Hays, 2007). The skill of critical thinking is best learned through the language in which the student grew up, no matter what language circumstances surround the student in the wider society. Accordingly, international educators urge the learning of literacy skills through the mother tongue for at least the frst three to four years of schooling, after which these skills may be transferred to a lingua franca (Alidou, et al., 2006). No meaningful adult literacy can, however, be developed from such beginnings unless an adult tradition of reading develops. For adults to read, there has to be something of interest available, i.e., materials which progressively expand beyond those for the elementary grades. So the frst challenge for many minority and endangered language communities is the development of a frst written form or orthography of their oral linguistic heritage. During the past two decades, quite a number of projects have been developed around the world to address the need for written languages and for literacy materials for the frst few grades of schooling in previously oral languages (Cantoni, 2007). In the Southern African Khoesan language area alone, some 20 projects, dealing with some 15 languages, are listed in a current publication (Biesele, 2014). Sponsors of these projects include: educators, anthropologists, linguists, non-governmental