Linguist and educationist Sedumedi Moloto is born

Ernest Sedumedi Moloto, linguist, educationist and teacher who served as chairman of both the Tswana Language Committee of South Africa and the Botswana National Language Committee was born in Moruleng, Rustenburg district. His teaching career started in the Orange Free State in 1935. He was the founder principal of the Ofentse Tribal School at Moruleng. He was promoted to the rank of supervisor of schools in the Potchefstroom circuit in 1957. In I960 he was seconded as lecturer in Tswana, Southern and Northern Sotho to the newly established University College of the North (Turfloop) near Pietersburg. In 1961 he returned to the Potchefstroom circuit as sub-inspector and later inspector of schools. In the latter capacity he served the Western Transvaal from Krugersdorp in the east to Supingstad near Gaborone in Botswana, a vast area covering the Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg circuits. His next appoint­ment was that of first chief planner for the Tswana Territorial Authority (forerunner of the Bophuthatswana government service). He subsequently served as Professor and Head of Department of African Languages at the University of Botswana in Gaborone. Later he held the same position at Vista University, and was based at the Mamelodi Campus in Pretoria. Moloto was not only a devoted teacher and a lover of his language and culture, but inspired many youngsters to take up leadership positions in the service of particularly the rural and tribal people. He was an excellent linguist and spoke Setswana, his mother tongue, English, Afrikaans and Dutch equally fluently. Moloto was once married to the South African struggle hero Ellen Khuzwayo. Source: Sonderling, N.E. (ed.) (1999). New Dictionary of South African Biography, v.2 , Pretoria: Vista.