Guest lecture, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU), May 31st 2023. This lecture offers to take a look at practices relating to ukuhlonipha and isihlonipho in the South African context. I discuss the construction and circulation of knowledge about ukuhlonipha/isihlonipho and aim to demonstrate how the interpretation of isihlonipho as language-only practices, and also as gendered language practices, can be traced back to historical accounts which shaped exogenous thinking on the subject. Then, I try to offer different perspectives on the subject by also introducing explanations from some unpublished archives (1930–1950) and some interviews from my fieldwork (2022). To conclude I also discuss how gender roles could be performed through isihlonipho language practices.