After a visit to the offices of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (also known as the "WAT" or Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language) in Stellenbosch last month, where I was given a guided tour by Dr. Willem Botha, the editor-in-chief of the dictionary, I was inspired to sponsor the word VERTALER (translator). Work on the dictionary was begun 90 years ago, in 1926, and the lexicographers are currently working on the letter S. They have currently reached the word skooier, to be specific.  This made me feel much better about the 12 years that it took me to finish the second edition of my Spanish-English Dictionary of Law and Business, which is not even as big as one of the volumes of the WAT!

The WAT aspires to be the Afrikaans equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, work on which began in 1857 and which was not published in hardbound volumes until 1928!