SUMMARY
In the nearly thirty years since the publication of the Vaktaalburo's pioneering bilingual Musiekwoordeboek/Dictionary of Music (1973) there has been a marked transformation both in terms of musical ontologies generally and the identity of the South African nation-state in particular. On the one hand Philip Bohlman (1999: 17) has neatly pointed out in his contribution to the anthology of essays entitled Rethinking Music that 'music may be what we think it is: it may not be', while on the other hand Sabine Marschall (2002: 117) reminds us that 'nations are not naturally in place but are invented and in need of constant mainte-nance'.