This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
Trilingual wine dictionary for rainbow nation
South Africa’s wine industry has launched a new online dictionary, with wine terms described for the first time in three languages: English, Afrikaans and Xhosa.
The online dictionary project, containing 3,500 wine terms, reflects the changing nature of South Africa’s wine industry, as black economic empowerment schemes actively encourage broader involvement in the trade.
Project leader Dr Michele van der Merwe of Stellenbosch University, said: “We live in a multilingual country where an increasing number of isiXhosa speakers in the Western Cape are becoming involved in the wine industry. There was previously no isiXhosa wine terminology. I hope that this dictionary fills the gap.”
Some wine terms from the new dictionary
The last dictionary produced for South Africa’s wine industry was published in 1973, at the height of the apartheid era.
The project has been financed by Winetech, which coordinates research and training in the country’s wine industry, and developed by SAWIS.