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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

Shimlas beat TUT by a convincing 52-26
2011-03-09

Charl Weideman
Photo: Van Zyl Naudè

In the second last match before the semi-finals, which will be played later this month, the FNB Shimlas made a clean sweep when they beat the team from Tshwane University of Technology by 52-26. Pieter Labuschagne, Shimla flank, scored the first try for his team, after which there was no stopping the Shimlas, who taught the FNB TUT team a good lesson at their own TUT Rugby Stadium.

With a halftime score of 26-5, the Shimlas smelt victory and very quickly George Whitehead, who is very successful with his kicks, contributed to the scoreboard with six successful goal kicks. Other Shimla players who excelled were the scrumhalf Enrico Acker and eighth man Erik Le Roux.
 
The FNB Shimlas are playing against the FNB NMMU team next week at the Xerox NMMU Stadium.

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