Johannes Theophilus Hahn (Ebenhaeser, Cape Colony, 24 December 1842 – Johannesburg, Transvaal, 22 January 1905) was a merchant and agent in South West Africa (SWA), linguistic expert on the Khoikhoi language, one of seven languages in which he was fluent.
Youth
Hahn was the third child of the Rhenish Missionary Johannes Samuel Hahn and Helene Langenbeck. He spent his first six years at the mission Eben-Ezer in the Western Cape, until 1848, when the family moved to Bethanie in Great Namaqualand (now South West Africa. He spoke Khoikhoi, the language of the Nama, like a second mother tongue. In 1849, he was sent to school in Barmen, (Germany), the Rhenish Missionary headquarters. When his father retired in 1852, Hahn lived at the family home there, but never forgot his time in Namaland.
Higher education
Hahn at first planned to return to SWA to work as a surveyor and cartographer, but after his vocational training he decided to return to the subject of the Nama, spending four years at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg studying linguistics with professor August Pott, a pioneering researcher on the comparative grammar of Bantu languages. During his studies, he began contributing linguistic and ethnographic papers to German journals: Die Nama-Hottentotten: ein Beitrag zur südafrikanischen Ethnographie ("The Nama: A Contribution to Southern African Ethnography), Globus XII (Dresden, 1867); Sagen und Märchen der Ova-Herero in Südafrika ("Proverbs and Folktales of the Ovaherero in Southern Africa"), Globus XIII (Dresden, 1868); Ein Raunkampf in der nördlichen Kap-Kolonie ("A Gossip War in Northern Cape Colony"), Globus XIV, nos. 7 and 8 (Dresden, 1868); Beiträge zur Kunde von den Hottentotten, Jahresberichte des Vereins für Erdkunde ("Contributions on the Customs of the Khoikhoi, Annual Report of the Dresden Geographical Society") (Dresden, 1868/69); Die Buschmänner: ein Beitrag zur südafrikanischen Völkerkunde ("The San: A Contribution to Southern African Ethnology"), Globus XVIII (Dresden, 1870); Der hottentottische Tsui-//goab und der Indogermanische Zeus, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde ("The Khoikhoi Tsui-//goab and the Indo-European Zeus, Journal of the Berlin Geographical Society") (Berlin, 1870). He matriculated from Halle in 1870 with his dissertation Die Sprache der Nama; nebst einem Anhang enthaltend Sprachproben aus dem Munde des Volkes ("The Language of the Nama: with an Appendix Featuring Sample Dialogue from the Mouths of the People") (Leipzig, 1870).
He spent many of his vacations at Schloss Poschwitz of the Privy Councillor Hans Conon von der Gabelentz, a colleague of Pott's, who owned an excellent collection of publications on Africa.
Hahn understood, besides the Nama and Herero languages, German, English, Dutch, Latin, and Greek. There is evidence that he was corresponding quite early with colleagues such as C.F. Wuras and Wilhelm Bleek. After finishing his doctorate, he stayed briefly in the Cape where he married Marianne Esther de la Roche Smuts, daughter of Cornelius Smuts, M.D.; the marriage produced two sons and a daughter, who died in infancy.
Return to his homeland
In 1871, he returned to SWA, settling among the ǁHawoben tribe of Nama (known by the colonials as Velskoendraers or Veldschoendragers, translating to "wearers of pelt shoes") in Keetmanshoop. He tried to make a living trading with them, but failed due to constant inter-tribal warfare. Observing that trade would never develop there without government intervention, he sent a letter to the Cape Colony magistrate in Springbok, Northern Cape on 21 October 1872, statistically outlining the lucrative trade between the Cape Colony and claiming it could be doubled were the Cape colonial authorities to pacify the area. Receiving no response, Hahn moved north to Rehoboth, where he sought more reliable shelter among the mixed-race Baster population.
Both found it difficult to submit to the authority of the Baster Council and objected to the annual $25 tariff and the smaller local tax. They refused to pay more than half of it, and insisted that half of the court that settled disputes between Basters and whites should be white. The immediate cause of the controversy was Hahn's written invitation to Transvaal Boer hunter Hendrik van Zyl and his associates in Ghansies to settle east of Rehoboth, in which Hahn told Van Zyl 40–50 settlers could easily take control of the area and alleged already inviting farmers from the Kamiesberg hills to settle in northern Namaland when he met them on a business trip to Cape Town.