Three language experts from the North-West University (NWU) – Prof Daan Wissing, Prof Wannie Carstens and Prof Hennie van Coller – were recently honoured for their contributions to the Afrikaans language.

Prof Wissing, senior researcher at the Centre for Language Technology (CtexT®), received honorary membership of the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS).

He has made a special contribution to linguistics in the South African context over several decades. He was involved as author, co-author, co-worker and editor of more than 90 publications, and participated in and led some of the various projects between the NWU and other South African and international universities. He also delivered a number of postgraduate students who later became leading members of the linguistics community.

He has been honoured with various awards during his career, including a medal of honour from the South African Academy for Science and Art, the Prestige Award of the Linguistics Society of South Africa, and the CJ Langenhoven Prize for Linguistics.

Prof Carstens, emeritus professor of the School of Languages, received the CJ Langenhoven Prize for Linguistics from the South African Academy for Science and Art. This prize is awarded for linguistics and/or creative language work in Afrikaans, including lexicography.

He is regarded as a writer of ground-breaking works in Afrikaans linguistics circles, and is honoured for the role he has played as editor of core publications in Afrikaans linguistics. Some of his books are viewed widely as the most authoritative source on a particular component of Afrikaans linguistics, namely normative linguistics, text linguistics and text editing.

With his columns and opinion pieces in the press he has also played an important role in popularising linguistics.

Prof Van Coller is an extraordinary professor at the Faculty of Humanities and shares this year’s Jan H Marais Prize of the South African Academy for Science and Art and prize money to the value of R500 000 with Prof Ina Wolfaardt-Gräbe from Pretoria.

He enjoys wide acclaim as literary scientist of international status. Not only does he have a formidable scholarly publication record as literary scientist, but he is also an acknowledged poet, translator and prose writer. He is a product of the Witwatersrand University, with doctorates from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and the former Rand Afrikaans University, and was honoured with a promotion to distinguished professor by the University of the Free State in 1997.

Prof Daan Wissing

Prof Wannie Carstens

Prof Hennie van Coller