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23 March 2021 | Story Mbali Moiketsi
International Mother Language Day

The Office for International Affairs recently celebrated International Language Day.  This year, we invited all faculties to submit the names of people who would be willing to contribute video clips to educate us about their mother tongue.  The videos submitted were from diverse academic staff members and postdoctoral fellows currently based in different parts of the world.  Extensive research has created this edutainment video, featuring famous language quotes, indigenous languages across the African continent, and business languages used across the African continent. Some of the indigenous languages on the African continent are fading away, caused by colonial influence.

Fun facts:
From 1994 to 2013, South Africa was in the Guinness Book of World Records for most official languages.  These are Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sepedi, Sesotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu.

Since the adoption of the 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe now holds this title with 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sign Language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa. Zimbabwe therefore now holds the Guinness World Record for the country with the largest number of official languages.  

Albeit the main languages in Zimbabwe are English, Shona and Ndebele, the minor languages are Chewa, Chibarwe, Kalanga, Koisan, Kunda, Lozi, Manyika, Nambya, Ndau, Nsenga, Tsonga-Shangani, Sotho, Tjwao, Tonga, Tswa, Tswana, Venda, and Xhosa.

WATCH: International Mother Language video


News Archive

Darwin lecture on transitions and extinctions presented at the UFS
2009-04-01

 
"Transitions and extinctions" was the topic of the latest lecture in the year long lecture series called "The story of life and survival" presented last week on the Main Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein. The lecture was presented by Dr Jennifer Botha-Brink, a palaeontologist at the National Museum, and affiliated to the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS. "Most species that have ever lived on earth are extinct, so understanding the processes of extinction is crucial to understanding the evolution of the biosphere,'" said Dr Botha-Brink. She discussed the causes of mass extinctions and their effects on the world's organisms - an issue that may be relevant to us as human beings as we enter the next major mass extinction. Here are, from the left: Prof. Jo van As, Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS, Dr Botha-Brink and Mr Rick Nuttall, Director of the National Museum.
Photo: Stephen Collett

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