Die Taalkommissie () is an arm of the ''

Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns The Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (SAAWK) (literally ''South African Academy for Science and Arts'') is a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting science, technology and the arts in Afrikaans, as well as promoting ...

'' (''South-African Academy for Science and Arts'') that serves as the technical committee of the Nasionale Taalliggaam vir Afrikaans (NTLA, ''National Language Body for Afrikaans''), which is the language regulator of the

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...

language. The Akademie was founded in

Bloemfontein Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legislative capital Cape To ...

in 1909, and its arm, the ''Spellingskommissie'' (''Spelling Commission''), was formed in 1914 and renamed in 1964. The Language Commission focuses mainly on the revision and publication of the ''

Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls The ''Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls'' (AWS) is a publication of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns and comprises three main sections: spelling rules, a list of words, and a list of abbreviations for Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ...

'' (''Afrikaans Word List and Spelling Rules''), a standard guide to the

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is on ...

and related writing conventions of the Afrikaans language. It is held as an authoritative source for the spelling of Afrikaans words, of which several, such as "baie", were spelled in multiple ways up to 1917. Ten editions of the ''AWS'' have appeared up to 2009. Furthermore it takes cognizance of Afrikaans

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

and the natural developments in the Afrikaans language community, such as new terminology which emerges in technology and other disciplines. Its coverage of varieties of Standard Afrikaans is being expanded, which includes the Nama, Griekwa and Kaaps varieties. A large corpus of the words used in the Afrikaans

Muslim community ' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. It is a synonym for ' ...

is also included in the ''AWS''.Die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns: Taalkommissie
The Akademie's website (in Afrikaans only) Ernst Kotzé of the

NMMU Nelson Mandela University (formerly known as ''Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU)'' ) and before that - the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), the Port Elizabeth Technikon and Vista University's Port Elizabeth campus. This South Af ...

was chairman from 2003 up to March 2012, when he was succeeded by Tom McLachlan, a linguist at UNISA.

References

External links

The ''Afrikaanse Woordelys en Spelreëls'' website
{{coord missing, South Africa Language regulators Afrikaans 1909 establishments in South Africa Organizations established in 1909 Articles containing video clips nl:Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns#Die Taalkommissie

See also

References

External links