The Mineralogical Association of South Africa (MinSA) is proud to announce the successful completion of a pioneering lexicography exercise that has collated geoscience terminology across South Africa’s eleven spoken national languages. 

The project, funded by the 35th International Geological Congress (IGC) Legacy Fund, represents a major step toward inclusivity and accessibility in the Earth sciences. It brings together specialised vocabulary from the fields of mineralogy, geology, geomorphology, and related Earth sciences, uniting words that define the environment in which we live with South Africa’s rich linguistic diversity. 

The intervention has run over two years and started as a grass-roots initiative in which universities, professionals, and community contributors submitted words through an online survey link. The second phase relied on the involvement of a professional translation service, the Stellenbosch University Language Centre, who played a key role in the translation and verification process. The collaboration resulted in collation of almost 2000 geoscience terms being documented across the various languages. Of these, just under half were collated from existing words, whereas the other half were transliterations provided by the professional translators. 

The project was inspired by a quote from Pip William’s novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, particularly the poignant and motivating quote “Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us.” 

According to project lead Prof. Bjorn von der Heyden, an economic geologist from Stellenbosch University’s Department of Earth Sciences and MinSA co-opted member, “The aim of the study was two-fold; we wanted to create a safe repository for all existing geoscience terms for prosperity’s sake, and we hope to inspire broader participation and understanding of South Africa’s geological heritage among our diverse population.” 

The final geoscience word bank will be made publicly available through an open-access platform hosted on the webpage of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). This word bank is a step in the right direction towards enabling researchers, educators, and students to engage with geological sciences in their preferred language. This achievement marks an important milestone in making the geosciences more available, accessible and inclusive. 

Chairperson of MinSA, Lethuxolo Dubazana said, “In a country where the sciences remain inaccessible to many, this repository serves as a vital step toward bridging the gap in collective scientific literacy. MinSA is proud to present a unified public resource that brings together terminology which may be familiar to some and entirely new to others, enabling exploration and comparison across South Africa’s indigenous languages. A rock is not just a rock; it represents our history and our present and by bringing these words to life, we ensure that geology becomes part of our shared future.” 

The Mineralogical Association of South Africa expresses its gratitude to the 35th IGC Legacy Fund for financial support and to the Stellenbosch University Language Centre for their expert linguistic contribution. 

For more information and access to the word bank, please visit: 

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19131345