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11 March 2022 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Dr Ralph Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the Afromontane Research Unit.

The African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), in association with the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), is hosting the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022). The theme of the conference is Southern African Mountains – their value and vulnerabilities.

The conference will bring relevant people together into one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity and academic outputs that feed into policy and action. 

The conference will take place from 14 to 17 March 2022 in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho. 

According to the SAMC2022 website, this is a truly Southern African regional mountain conference, targeting the African region south of the Congo rainforest (DRC) and Lake Rukwa (Tanzania), but including Madagascar, the Comoros and the Mascarenes (i.e., Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo [southern mountains], Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, La Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

Dr Ralph Clark, ARU Director, said the conference would be a high-level international event with UNESCO patronage and very valuable sponsors.

“The programme will have six parallel tracks (one being dedicated to postgraduate students), with about 200 papers being delivered. In addition, we have some very high-profile special sessions, such as an MRI special session on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a UNESCO special session on regional collaboration. We also have Prof Julian Bayliss, described as the man who discovered an unseen world, as the guest speaker at the closing event.”

The conference will bring together relevant people in one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies, with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

The GLOMOS team, one of the long-term partners of the ARU, spent the week of 8 to 11 March 2022 on the Qwaqwa Campus to strengthen collaboration and pave the way for new research opportunities in Phuthaditjhaba and the Maloti-Drakensberg.
GLOMOS represents an interface between the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Eurac Research. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stefano Terzi, said: “It’s very interesting for us to look at the Maloti-Drakensberg area because of its diversity. We are in the process of really exciting collaborations.”
Their projects include an understanding of the root causes of land degradation and improving decision-making processes for current water management within the context of water scarcity in the Maloti-Drakensberg.
• For more information on the speakers and the programme, click here 


News Archive

Traffic in translation between French and Afrikaans follows unique direction
2017-11-21

 Description: Traffic in translation between French and Afrikaans  Tags: Traffic in translation between French and Afrikaans

At Prof Naòmi Morgan’s inaugural lecture were, from the left:
Profs Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research; Morgan;
Heidi Hudson, Acting Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities;
and Angelique van Niekerk, Head of the Department of Afrikaans
and Dutch, German and French.
Photo: Stephen Collett

Translation is normally done from a so-called weaker language into a mightier one. This is one of the ways, according to author Antjie Krog in her book A Change of Tongue, which is used by a ‘weaker’ language to help it survive.

However, according to Prof Naòmi Morgan, Head of French in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State (UFS), this is not the case with French, which is the mightier language, and Afrikaans.

Influence of translators on Afrikaans

“The number of translated titles from French into Afrikaans, from ‘great’ into ‘lesser’ language, is far more than the other way round, almost as if the translators wanted to make the Afrikaans-speaking readers literary self-sufficient, but did not feel the same need to extend the Afrikaans literature into other languages.”

This was Prof Morgan’s words on 8 November 2017 during her inaugural lecture entitled, Van Frans na Afrikaans: 100 jaar van byna eenrigting-vertaalverkeer, in the Equitas Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus. A PowerPoint presentation, with a symbolic background of the South African and French flags and relevant texts, formed part of her lecture. She also played video clips and pieces of music to complement it.

Among others, she has a doctorate in Modern French Literature from the University of Geneva, and her translations have earned her a French Knighthood and various prizes. She is also well-known for her translations and involvement in dramas such as Oskar en die Pienk Tannie and Monsieur Ibrahim en die blomme van die Koran.

Greater challenges in this direction

In her lecture, she looked at the two-way traffic from French into Afrikaans and from Afrikaans into French.

Three French citizens, Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, Georges Lory, and Donald Moerdijk, have translated from Afrikaans into French. Of course, their background and ties with South Africa also had an influence on their work. “In Moerdijk’s case, translation from Afrikaans, his second language, was a way in which to recall the country he left in his mind’s eye,” she said.

Prof Morgan is one of only two translators who translates works from Afrikaans into French, the other being Catherine du Toit. However, translations in this direction pose greater challenges. She said it involves “not only knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of the French target culture and literature”. In addition, there aren’t any good bilingual dictionaries, and the only Afrikaans-French dictionary is a thin volume by B Strelen and HL Gonin dating from 1950.

Prof Morgan still believes in translation

She believes there is a need to hear foreign languages such as French in the form of music in Afrikaans, and the speaking of a language alone might not be enough to ensure its survival. 

She still believes in translation, and quoted Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary homelands: essays and criticism 1981-1991 in this respect: “The word ‘translation’ comes, etymologically, from the Latin for ‘bearing across’. Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.”

Click here for Prof Morgan’s full lecture (only available in Afrikaans).

 

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