Neville Alexander

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Neville Alexander at the World Conference of African Linguistics in Cologne (2009)

Neville Edward Alexander (born October 22, 1936 in Cradock , † August 27, 2012 in Cape Town ) was a South African linguist and campaigner of Nelson Mandela against the apartheid regime .

Life

Alexander was born in 1936 in Cradock in the eastern part of the Cape Province of South Africa. The father was a carpenter, the mother a teacher. He studied German and history at the University of Cape Town . He wrote his master's thesis on the Silesian baroque drama by Andreas Gryphius and Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein . He then received an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship and studied at the University of Tübingen . There he received his doctorate in 1961 with a thesis on Gerhart Hauptmann .

He had already joined the anti-apartheid movement in 1957. After returning to South Africa, he joined a sub-organization of the Non European Unity Movement and was one of the founders of the National Liberation Front (NLF). In 1963 he was arrested and, despite worldwide protests - including in Germany - sentenced to ten years in prison for high treason . He was serving his sentence with Nelson Mandela on the notorious prison island Robben Island . After the abolition of the apartheid regime, he became increasingly concerned with multilingual projects and educational issues in South Africa.

Until his death he was director of the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA) project at the University of Cape Town and a member of the board of the African Academy of Languages .

Awards

  • 2008: Linguapax Prize for his services to linguistics and multilingual education
  • 2013: Order of Luthuli in silver (posthumous)

Literature (selection)

  • Neville Alexander: South Africa. The path from apartheid to democracy. Translated from the English by Christian Grüny. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-48254-6
  • Neville Alexander, Jutta Limbach, Joachim Gauck: Truth politics in Germany and South Africa. Three paths to come to terms with the past. Offizin-Verlag, Hannover 2001, ISBN 3-930-34527-7
  • Interview with Neville Alexander: With the power of languages ​​against the language of power . Edited by Lucijan Busch. Drava Verlag, Klagenfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-85435-658-5
  • Roland Czada: Longing for Azania. Neville Alexander's life and work for an anti-racist South Africa. In: Osnabrück Yearbook Peace and Science 19. V&R unipress. Göttingen 2012, pp. 193–204, ISSN  0948-194X ( online , PDF file; 209 kB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Neville-Alexander-dies-aged-75-20120827
  2. ↑ List of recipients of the medals in South Africa 2013 ( memento of the original dated May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed August 9, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sabc.co.za
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, Neville
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alexander, Neville Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African linguist and anti-apartheid fighter
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Cradock (South Africa)
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 2012
Place of death Cape Town