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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

Badminton players show their class
2007-06-04

Kovsie badminton players showed their class at the 2007 All African Championships held in Rose Hills, Mauritius during May, just as they did last year in Algeria.

In the individual championships in the men's double event Chris and Roelof Dednam again successfully combined for gold with a victory in the final over Steve Malcouzane and Georgie Cupidon of the Seychelles. Chris Dednam and Michelle Edwards also made the final
round in the mixed double event, but were beaten by Georgie Cupidon and Julliette Ahwan (Seychelles) to settle for a silver medal.

In the men's singles event Chris Dednam equalled last year's performance and was awarded with bronze, having lost 24-22 in the third set in the semi-finals in a marathon match against Eli Mambwe (Zambia). It was therefore once again in the men's singles where South Africa could not vest their supremacy in Africa. But, Chris improved his tally of medals to gold, silver and bronze. Roelof also showed good form by making the quarter-finals in the singles as well as the mixed doubles.

Fellow Kovsie, Wiaan Viljoen, joined the Dednam brothers and the rest of the South African team for silver in the team competition.

A week earlier, in the Mauritius International tournament, Chris won gold by winning the mixed doubles event with Michelle Edwards (against the same Georgie Cupidon and Julliette Ahwan), while the Dednam brothers had to settle for silver in the men's double event losing to Germany's Thomas Tesche and Jochen Cassel.

Chris and Roelof Dednam have qualified, because of their current position on the world ranking table, for the men's doubles in the World Badminton Championships to be played in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August this year.
 

Roelof and Chris Dednam

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