Ernst Oswald Johannes Westphal

[1] He studied Zulu and Southern Sotho under Clement Martyn Doke at the University of the Witwatersrand and, after graduating in 1942, was a Lecturer there 1942–1947.

Westphal's doctoral thesis The Sentence in Venda (University of London, 1955) is said to have been based entirely on his own knowledge of the language, using no other source.

[1] Westphal's family has been deeply involved in the cultural life of South Africa for over a hundred years.

His grandfather, Gotthilf Ernst Westphal, for example, saw the potential of the teenage Sol Plaatje, then a student at the Mission Station in Pniel, Northern Cape, and gave him private tuition.

[1] Westphal was also one of the founders of SANCCOB (South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds), the story of which is documented in Marie Philip's book Gregory.