Mulleres na Lexicografía / Women in Lexicography

Jana Luther

Afrikaans, English

Jana Luther is a lexicographer and text editor who specializes in Afrikaans.

Luther is a co-editor, since 2019, of the comprehensive Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT), the largest descriptive Afrikaans Dictionary. In her spare time, she collects new words in her own online dictionary, Woordeboek van Afrikaans Vandag. She studied lexicography and literature (Afrikaans, Dutch and English), obtaining a master’s degree cum laude at the Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) in 1991. She started working for Tafelberg Publishers in the same year, initially as an editor of youth literature, before moving to the company’s dictionary section, which was incorporated with Pharos Dictionaries (NB Publishers) in 1996. She was responsible for the final edit of several Pharos publications. She was a co-compiler of New Words/Nuwe Woorde (1999) and co-editor of the large Pharos Afrikaans-English/English-Afrikaans Dictionary (2005) and the Pharos Afrikaans-English/English-Afrikaans Concise Dictionary (2007). In 2004 she was appointed as publisher of Pharos. In 2007 she joined Pearson South Africa where she established a new dictionary section. She is the compiler of the HAT Afrikaanse Skoolwoordeboek (a school dictionary) and Sakwoordeboek (a pocket dictionary) (2009), the Longman-HAT English-Afrikaans/Afrikaans-English Basic Dictionary, School Dictionary and Pocket Dictionary (2011), and she is one of the three editors of the 6th edition (2015) of the Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT6), the best known explanatory dictionary for Afrikaans.

As lead editor/compiler ● Woordeboek van Afrikaans Vandag (Jana Luther, 2020 – ) (online) ● Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal, 6th edition (J Luther, F Pheiffer, RH Gouws. Pearson, 2015) (paper, online) ● Longman-HAT School Dictionary and Longman-HAT Pocket Dictionary: English-Afrikaans/Afrikaans-English (Pearson, 2011) (paper, online) ● Longman-HAT Basic Dictionary: English-Afrikaans/Afrikaans-English (Pearson, 2011) (paper) ● HAT Afrikaanse Skoolwoordeboek and HAT Afrikaanse Sakwoordeboek (Pearson, 2009) (paper, online) As co-editor ● Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal, Part XVI (SPR – szonditoets) (Buro of the WAT, 2021) (paper, online) ● Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls (AWS), 11th edition (Taalkommissie. Pharos, 2017) (paper, online) ● HAT Taal- en Feitegids (F Pheiffer, J Luther. Pearson, 2014) (paper) ● Longman-HAT Afrikaans Dictionary and Grammar for English Speakers (J Luther, T McLachlan, A Barnby. Pearson, 2012) (paper) ● Pharos Afrikaans-English/English-Afrikaans Concise Dictionary (F Pheiffer, J Luther, W Smith-Müller. Pharos, 2007) (paper) ● Pharos Afrikaans-English/English-Afrikaans Dictionary (M du Plessis, F Pheiffer, W Smith-Müller, J Luther. Pharos, 2005) (paper, online) New Words/Nuwe Woorde (M du Plessis, J Luther. Pharos, 1999) (paper) As publishing editor Paper ● My eerste HAT (Daniel Hugo. Pearson, 2009) ● My HAT Storiewoordeboek (Linda Rode. Pearson, 2010) ● Feitegids (Isabel Uys. Pharos, 2007) ● School Dictionary: English-Afrikaans/Afrikaans-English (Jan Kromhout. Pharos, 2005) ● Dictionary of Economics and Business (WFJ Steenkamp, HJJ Reynders. Pharos, 2005) ● Business Dictionary (JDU Geldenhuys, EE Viljoen-Smook. Pharos, 2004) ● Dictionary of Oceanology (Johann RE Lutjeharms. Pharos, 2004) ● Spreekwoorde en waar hulle vandaan kom (Anton F Prinsloo. Pharos, 2004) ● Skryf Afrikaans van A tot Z (Dalene Müller. Pharos, 2003) ● Afrikaanse woordelys en spelreëls (Taalkommissie van die SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns. Pharos, 2002) ● South African Music Dictionary (Maria Smit, Reino Otterman. Pharos, 2000) Digital ● HAT Aanlyn / Longman Online (dictionary portal, 2014–2017) ● Pharos Online (dictionary portal, 2004–2007) ● Pharos Speller (Afrikaans spell checker and hyphenator for Microsoft Office, with ● Polderland Language and Speech Technology, Nijmegen, 2002) ● Pharos Dictionaries 5-in-1 (CD-ROM, with Logos/Libronix, 2002) ● Collins Dictionaries 4-in-1 (CD-ROM, with Logos/Libronix, 2001)

woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT) (Dicionario da Lingua Africaans (WAT)) https://www.wat.co.za/ https://www.woordeboek.co.za/ https://www.wat.co.za/produk/woordeboek-van-die-afrikaanse-taal-wat/ Woordeboek van Afrikaans Vandag (Dicionario do Africaans Actual) https://afrikaans-vandag.co.za/ Pharos Online (Pharos en liña) https://www.pharosonline.co.za/home Virtuele Instituut vir Afrikaans (Instituto Virtual do Africaans) https://viva-afrikaans.org/

Luther writes, since 2018, a fortnightly language column (Woordewisseling) for the Afrikaans daily newspapers Beeld and Die Burger. It is also published on Netwerk24. https://www.afrikaans-vandag.co.za/aktueel/woordewisseling/

Luther is a member (and secretary) of the Afrikaanse Taalkommissie (Afrikaans Language Commission), a commission of the South African Academy for Science and Arts officially entrusted with formulating the rules and regulations for Afrikaans orthography. In her spare time, she works as a freelance fiction editor for various publishers. From 2017 to 2018, she worked as a senior editor on the Virtual Institute for Afrikaans (VivA)’s General Afrikaans Grammar (AAG). From 1998 to 2006, she regularly worked as a freelance sub-editor and revise editor in the night newsroom of the Afrikaans daily newspaper Die Burger.

● Sources and information provided by the author ● Photo: Private source

Rufus Gouws

Lola Mosquera Sánchez