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25 February 2022
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Story Lacea Loader
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The Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) will reopen on 28 February 2022. The decision was made by the university management today after the campus was closed on 22 February 2022 due to violent protest action.
From 28 February 2022 to 4 March 2022, all classes will be presented online.
Students will be informed by their respective faculties about the model of academic delivery that will be followed from 7 March 2022.
The arrangement is estimated to continue for two to three weeks at the most, after which the academic programme will return to the approved teaching plans for 2022.
Issued by:
Lacea Loader
Director: Communication and Marketing
University of the Free State
23 February 2022
Afrikaans place names were not only given by Afrikaner people, says professor.
2012-09-25
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Prof. Peter Raper delivering his lecture on South African place names.
25 September 2012 |
Prof. Peter Raper, honorary professor at the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice, delivered a public lecture in Clarens earlier this month. The theme of the lecture was “From Stone Age to GPS: The fourth edition of the South African Place Names Dictionary”.
Prof. Raper shared the historical development of the project as well as the challenges and other interesting observations associated with the topic. He elaborated on the dramatic change in the focus of his research on place names in South Africa.
It was previously assumed that all of the Afrikaans place names were given by the Afrikaner people and that changing these place names was consistent with the mandate of the South African Geographical Names Council (SAGNC) to transform place names. Prof. Raper said more in-depth research revealed that a significant number of place names are actually translations of original San names – into Afrikaans, Khoi and the Bantu languages. He told the audience that given the constitutional stipulation that no cultural group’s heritage may be removed, this discovery calls into the question the modus operandi of the SAGNC.
Prof. Raper’s lecture was part of the conference programme of the Third International MIDP IV Symposium that took place on the Qwaqwa campus. The MIDP (Multilingual Information Development Programme) is a project sponsored by the Province of Antwerp. The theme for this year’s symposium was “Multilingualism for Empowerment” and was presented in collaboration with the University of Antwerp.