{"id":12973,"date":"2026-10-14T09:32:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/?p=12973"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:37:01","slug":"sadilar-applauds-members-elected-to-the-council-of-the-suid-afrikaanse-akademie-vir-wetenskap-en-kuns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/sadilar-applauds-members-elected-to-the-council-of-the-suid-afrikaanse-akademie-vir-wetenskap-en-kuns\/","title":{"rendered":"SADiLaR Applauds Members Elected to the Council of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

14 October 2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
From top left to right: Prof Tobie van Dyk, Prof Laurette Pretorius, Dr Febe de Wet<\/em>
From bottom left to right: Dr Laurette Marais, Dr Friedel Wolff, Prof Menno van Zaanen<\/em>
\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR)<\/a> warmly congratulates its members and associates on their election and appointment to leadership and specialist roles in the Council of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns<\/a> (South African Academy for Science and Arts) and its Commission for Language Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the newly appointed leaders is Tobie van Dyk, Professor of Applied Linguistics at North-West University and head of SADiLaR\u2019s Higher Education Sector Support Programme (HESSP). Prof van Dyk has been elected to the Akademie Council as one of four members from the humanities. He was subsequently also elected as Deputy Chairperson of the Council. His expertise spans academic literacy, language assessment, language planning, multilingualism, digital language resources and generative artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SADiLaR also congratulates Prof Laurette Pretorius, an honorary fellow of SADiLaR, on being re-elected for a third term as a member of the Council. She is one of four elected members from the natural sciences. In addition, she is a founding member and chair of the Akademie\u2019s Commission for Language Technology, established in 2026. Prof Pretorius is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of South Africa and Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University. Her extensive expertise includes natural language processing and language technology towards the technological development of the resource-scarce languages of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof Menno van Zaanen (Professor in Digital Humanities at SADiLaR), Dr Friedel Wolff (SADiLaR\u2019s technical manager), SADiLaR\u2019s former speech node (CSIR) manager, Dr Laurette Marais, and SADiLaR\u2019s Scientific Advisory Committee member, Dr Febe de Wet, were all appointed as expert members to the Akademie\u2019s Commission for Language Technology in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SADiLaR celebrates the recognition of its members and associates and their continued contribution to advancing language scholarship, digital language resources, language technology and multilingualism in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We extend our warmest congratulations to all the newly elected and appointed members and wish them every success as they contribute to the continued development and advancement of Afrikaans as a part of South Africa\u2019s broader multilingual knowledge landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full media statement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by:  Lihle Sosibo<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 October 2026 The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) warmly congratulates its members and associates on their election and appointment to leadership and specialist roles in the Council of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for Science and Arts) and its Commission for Language Technology. Among the newly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,733,1],"tags":[762,1103,744,1174],"class_list":["post-12973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-afrikaans","tag-langauage-development","tag-sadilar","tag-suid-afrikaanse-akademie-vir-wetenskap-en-kuns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12977,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12973\/revisions\/12977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sadilar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}