The Names Society of Southern Africa (NSSA) has announced its Executive Committee for 2026–2030. Its eleven members bring together research on names and identity, African languages and literatures, oral history, language policy, translation technology and the social meanings of place. Representing institutions in South Africa, Eswatini and Zimbabwe, the committee reflects the regional and interdisciplinary character of Southern African onomastics.
For readers of e-Onomastics, the new committee offers an opportunity to explore the scholars behind the titles: where their academic journeys began, which questions have shaped their work, and how their expertise connects with the study of names. The appointments below follow the NSSA announcement supplied for this introduction; the profiles draw on university biographies, thesis repositories, publishers and research publications.
Announcement: NSSA on Facebook.
President — Prof. Tebogo J. Rakgogo
Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), South Africa
Tebogo Jacob Rakgogo’s academic development connects language practice with a sustained investigation of the power carried by language names. He completed a National Diploma, BTech and master’s degree in Language Practice at TUT, alongside further qualifications in education and translation at UNISA. In 2019, he completed his doctorate in onomastics at the University of the Witwatersrand.
His doctoral research examined the principles behind naming an official language, concentrating on the competing designations Sepedi and Sesotho sa Leboa/Northern Sotho. This question has continued through publications on constitutional terminology, linguistic identity and the relationship between language and dialect. His 2024 article on the naming controversy approaches it through forensic linguistics, bringing legislation and institutional responsibility into the discussion.
Rakgogo’s wider interests include sociolinguistics, dialectology, historiography, language policy and planning, and language and law. His work has also involved language bodies and terminology policy. Together, these activities connect scholarly analysis with the institutions through which languages acquire recognition and authority.
Sources: Universities South Africa biography; 2024 article and author biography.
Editor-in-Chief — Prof. Sambulo Ndlovu
University of Eswatini (UNESWA), Eswatini
Sambulo Ndlovu’s career places African onomastics in conversation with sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and cultural studies. He holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Cape Town. His academic trajectory includes Great Zimbabwe University and Humboldt research fellowships at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. A recent scholarly biography identifies him as an Associate Professor at UNESWA and a Research Associate at UNISA.
As Editor-in-Chief of Nomina Africana, he occupies a central position in the publication of research on African names. His book Naming and Othering in Africa: Imagining Supremacy and Inferiority through Language examines how naming can produce exclusion and unequal social relations. His work on Zimbabwean renaming similarly asks whether replacing names actually changes the hierarchies embedded in public space.
His interests also extend to African youth languages and morphosyntactic variation. Across these fields, a recurring concern is what language does socially: how it establishes belonging, marks difference and makes claims to authority.
Sources: UFS keynote biography; Routledge book; study of Zimbabwean renaming.
Deputy President — Dr Chrismi-Rinda Loth
University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa
Chrismi-Rinda Loth’s research follows the relationship between language policy, public space and the visibility of communities. Her 2016 doctorate at UFS, supervised by Theodorus du Plessis, investigated the linguistic landscape of post-apartheid rural South Africa. It addressed an important imbalance in the field: the tendency to study urban signage while paying less attention to rural multilingual environments.
Her subsequent work brings place-name research into South African Sign Language and Deaf Studies. UFS identifies her among the researchers responsible for the Survey of South African Sign Language Place Names, the related project on technological development using place names, and the OurPlaces application.
This trajectory moves from the languages visible in public space to forms of geographical knowledge expressed through signing. It also highlights why signed place names deserve investigation in their own right, rather than being treated simply as translations of written names. A co-authored 2025 article on ethical access to Deaf communities adds an important methodological dimension to this work.
Sources: doctoral dissertation announcement; UFS OurPlaces project; research ethics article.
Secretary-General — Dr Yanga L. P. Myataza, formerly Majola
Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), South Africa
Published earlier under the name Yanga L. P. Majola, Myataza has developed a research programme around language recognition, minority varieties and cultural identity. His training began with qualifications in Language Practice at TUT. His 2018 master’s dissertation, completed with distinction, considered the case for using isiBhaca as a medium of instruction in Umzimkhulu.
His 2021 Wits doctoral thesis extended this enquiry to language maintenance and shift among amaBhaca raised in the same region. It examined how the institutional prominence of isiZulu and isiXhosa affects isiBhaca speakers’ linguistic choices and sense of identity.
The NSSA’s biographical record also documents teaching at the Central University of Technology before his work at TUT, alongside interests in dialectology, onomastics, multilingualism, translation and computational linguistics. His academic path illustrates the close connection between questions of linguistic classification and the everyday consequences of recognising—or overlooking—a community’s own language.
Sources: supervisor’s record of the master’s dissertation; Wits doctoral thesis; NSSA biographical profile under Majola.
Deputy Secretary-General — Dr Lorato Mokwena
University of South Africa (UNISA), South Africa
Lorato Mokwena is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at UNISA whose research centres on social semiotics, rural linguistic landscapes, oral naming practices and indigenous knowledge. Her academic training at the University of the Western Cape progressed from undergraduate and honours study to a master’s project on identities constructed in online discussion, followed by doctoral research on two rural district municipalities in the Northern Cape.
That progression—from digital discourse to rural environments—retains a common question: how do people make identities and places meaningful through the resources available to them? Her work draws attention to oral directions and locally created street names, expanding linguistic-landscape research beyond written signs.
She is the author of Orania: Post-Apartheid South Africa’s Bogeyman? and a co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Language and the Global South/s. Her public scholarship includes the Dit is ’n Noord-Kaap ding colloquium and the documentary The Broken String, connecting research with Northern Cape communities and their histories.
Sources: author biography; UWC academic background; research overview; doctoral repository record.
Treasurer-General — Dr Lehlohonolo V. Motake
Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT), South Africa
Lehlohonolo Victor Motake’s expertise lies in translation, translation technology, terminology development and the use of Sesotho in teaching and learning. CUT records distinction-level achievement in his National Diploma, BTech and master’s qualification in Language Practice, followed by a doctorate.
His doctoral research at TUT, recorded by his co-supervisor in 2020, examined students’ and lecturers’ attitudes towards computer-aided translation tools. This provides a clear link between his academic formation and his continuing concern with the practical infrastructure of multilingualism.
At CUT, he serves as Deputy Director in the university’s language-services structure, described in recent reports as the Language Development and Support Unit. University reports document his involvement in multilingual writing initiatives, literacy activities and efforts to strengthen indigenous languages as languages of scholarship. His contribution to the committee therefore includes experience with the practical work needed to make language inclusion effective in higher education.
Sources: CUT staff profile; doctoral supervision record; CUT multilingual research initiative; CUT language and literacy activities.
Deputy Treasurer — Dr Thato Monyakane
University of South Africa (UNISA), South Africa
Thato Mabolaeng Monyakane is a Senior Lecturer in UNISA’s Department of African Languages, specialising in Sesotho, literature and education. Her qualifications connect the National University of Lesotho, the University of the Free State and UNISA, where her 2016 doctoral thesis investigated cultural, social and political relationships among the Bafokeng, Bakuena and Bataung lineages across Sotho groups.
Her research encompasses both oral and modern African literature. Publications on N. M. Khaketla examine the relationship between African and Western perspectives and the writer’s pioneering contribution to women’s authorship in Sesotho. Her university profile also records work on Sesotho idioms, folktales and terminology in technology.
Her connection with onomastics is explicit in a 2018 conference presentation on the continued use of African and traditional place names alongside modern alternatives. Her work thus brings literary interpretation, lineage histories and everyday naming practices into a shared discussion of cultural continuity.
Sources: UNISA staff biography and publications; doctoral thesis; article on N. M. Khaketla.
Marketing and Communications — Dr Mandla Mathebula
Gauteng Geographical Names Committee (GGNC), South Africa
Mandla Mathebula connects historical research with the public processes through which places receive and change their names. His 2018 PhD in History at the University of Limpopo investigated the genealogy and migration of the va ka Valoyi of Limpopo. Drawing on oral testimony and documentary sources, the study reconstructed relationships among twenty communities and explored their connections with earlier Southern African dynasties.
His publications include 800 Years of Tsonga History and The Backroom Boy: Andrew Mlangeni’s Story. His scholarly articles also address migration, lineage and historical reconstruction, including the Valoyi’s relationship with the Changamire tradition.
His documented participation in the GGNC’s work places this historical expertise within contemporary heritage debates. For onomastics, his trajectory is particularly relevant: oral history and genealogy can illuminate the people, memories and claims attached to a geographical name, while public consultation reveals how those meanings are negotiated today.
Sources: University of Limpopo doctoral thesis; publisher’s author profile; Valoyi research article; report on GGNC consultation.
Events and Coordination — Dr Gcinile Dlamini
University of Eswatini (UNESWA), Eswatini
Gcinile Dlamini’s available research record points towards applied linguistics, Swati–English language contact and the description of English as used in Eswatini. Academic records under the fuller name Thulisile Gcinile Dlamini include a postgraduate teaching qualification from the University of Swaziland and an MPhil from Stellenbosch University, followed by a doctorate at Rhodes University.
Rhodes’s October 2025 graduation programme records her doctoral study of vowel epenthesis in syllable structures containing syllabic consonants in Swati English, supervised by William Bennett. The research examines pronunciation patterns in a setting where speakers’ linguistic resources cross the boundaries between Swati and English.
A co-authored study of how aspects of Swati grammar affect university students’ understanding of English noun phrases adds a pedagogical strand to this profile. These documented interests contribute expertise in language structure, contact and learning to a committee whose work ranges across the linguistic and social dimensions of naming.
Sources: Rhodes doctoral repository record; Rhodes graduation programme, October 2025; Swati grammar and English noun phrases.
Resource Mobilisation — Dr Jackson Sebola
University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa
Jackson Sebola, who also publishes as Jackson Sebola-Samanyanga, approaches names through planning, development, land and identity. His academic background includes a master’s degree in Town and Regional Planning and a PhD in Development Studies. His professional experience spans private practice, public institutions and academia.
The African Research Universities Alliance describes his work as an investigation of colonial planning legacies and the relationship between statutory and traditional governance. His research treats place as something lived, remembered and politically contested, rather than merely a location on a map. His ARUA fellowship profile links him with Makerere University’s Centre of Excellence in Notions of Identity and a project on land, identity and belonging in rural South Africa.
His 2026 Nomina Africana article on African toponyms in the Venḓa region makes the connection with onomastics explicit. It brings an ethnopragmatic perspective to geographical names, linking their interpretation with communities’ situated knowledge and experience of place.
Sources: ARUA research profile; UP staff listing; Nomina Africana article.
Resource Mobilisation — Prof. Advice Viriri
Midlands State University (MSU), Zimbabwe
Advice Viriri brings a background in African languages, literary scholarship and university leadership. His 2013 UNISA doctoral thesis examined the representation of the pungwe, or night vigil, in selected Shona novels and songs. Drawing on Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque, it explored the relationship between oral performance, political resistance and the multiple voices of Zimbabwe’s liberation history.
His broader publication record includes Shona lexicography, indigenous knowledge and debates about the colonial inheritance of African scholarship. His article on missionaries’ contribution to Shona lexicography examines an especially important issue for language history: the ways dictionaries and standardisation emerge within unequal cultural and political relationships.
MSU reports document his service as Director of the Zvishavane Campus and participation in institutional partnerships. His research and leadership experience add a literary and historical perspective to the committee, as well as experience of cooperation across institutional boundaries.
Sources: UNISA doctoral thesis; Shona lexicography article; MSU campus leadership; MSU institutional collaboration.
A regional community of complementary expertise
Read together, these academic journeys show why names benefit from more than one disciplinary perspective. A language name can be a constitutional question; a place name can preserve oral history, express belonging or become the subject of public negotiation. Names also circulate through literature, digital resources, classrooms and signed communication.
The committee’s combined expertise provides a broad intellectual foundation for the NSSA’s 2026–2030 term. These connections describe the research represented by its members, rather than a formally announced programme of activities. We congratulate the new Executive Committee and look forward to following its contribution to onomastic scholarship in Southern Africa and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment