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International Mother Language Day Celebration 2021

23 March 2021 | Story Mbali Moiketsi

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

UFS presents workshop on plea bargaining

2010-02-09

At the workshop were in front: Prof. Hennie Oosthuizen, Department of Criminal and Medical Law at the UFS; back: Judge Faan Hancke, Adv. Jo Hiemstra of the Office of the Director Public Prosecution in the Free State, Judge President Hendrick Musi and Judge of Appeal Fritz Brand.
Photo: Stephen Collett

The Centre for Judicial Excellence in the Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently presented a workshop on plea bargaining. This is the fourth workshop in the series of workshops on effective court management and the expedition of trials that started in 2007.

According to Judge Faan Hancke, the Chair of the workshop and also Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Process Law at the UFS, selected members of the judicature such as Judge of Appeal Fritz Brand, Judge Albert Kruger – who is amongst others the author of an important book on the criminal process – and Judge President of the Free State High Court, Hendrick Musi, conducted presentations at this workshop.

Judge Hancke’s lecture focused on the basic principles of plea bargaining. “Abroad, the plea agreement is effectively applied to shorten court procedures. This gives them a 80 percent saving on court cases with regard to serious crime, where we in South Africa save less than five percent on court cases.

The workshop was attended by magistrates, attorneys, advocates, the UFS Law Clinic and members of the Legal Aid Council. According to Mr Lukas Brand, a magistrate from Botshabelo, this workshop is a must for each jurist. More members of the legal profession must attend these kinds of workshops because there are many people who lack the necessary knowledge on some of the stipulations in the criminal procedure.

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