| OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA (OSISA) TO ASSIST DEVELOP SESOTHO LANGUAGE USAGE | |
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The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) will assist in improving usage of the Sesotho language so that it could be dynamic by offering training to various stakeholders engaged in day-day usage of the language. Speaking at a media briefing session held at Lesotho Sun on Tuesday 13 August, 2002, OSISA's Language Fellow Professor Franciso Matsinhe said the society is currently running a project to identify problem areas in the daily usage of the language, adding that this is done to stimulate focus for training. He indicated that during his ten-day stay in the country, he has held
meetings with among others, Sesotho teachers from various high schools,
representatives of the Lesotho Distance Teaching Centre (LDTC), the National
Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), members of the Sesotho academy and
tutors in the Faculty of Education in the National University of Lesotho. He
said among problems identified during consultations with stakeholders
include lack of proper terminology for translation from English to Sesotho
as well as lack of training on proper usage of the language. Meanwhile, at the conference media practitioners also identified similar problems in their day-to-day tasks adding that frequent training conducted in Sesotho and establishment of media editors' forum would assist them use similar Sesotho words to explain technical terms so as to avoid confusing the readers. In the meantime, Professor Matshinhe will hold meetings with Lesotho Aids Programme Coordinating Authority (LAPCA) to identify problems in usage of the Sesotho language in reference to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Similar consultations will be held in other SADC member states with the
aim to assist in the development of indigenous languages. Training is
expected of to start after 18 months upon completion of OSISA's problem
identification project. | |
| SOURCE: LENA |