The recordings were made of the last surviving fluent speakers of two major South African Khoisan linguistic families, the Khoekoe (Khoi) and the !Kwi (San). Many of the original recordings on the shellac records were made in the Phonetics Laboratory of the University in 1936, when a group of Bushmen visited Johannesburg for the Empire Exhibition. The recordings on the 33rpm record was made some 18 years later. The recordings were later archived on optical discs with manual enhancement. More description about the project, comments about the recordings and the Khoisan languages, can be found in the booklet which accompanied the CD, produced by Professor Anthony Traill and the Department of Linguistic, Wits University.

Page 5 of the booklet contains a ||Xegwi rendering of the text 'The North Wind and the Sun', which is a standard text developed by the International Phonetic Association.