Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: IsiXhosa and English, G.-M. de Schryver et al. (Eds.) : book review

Oxford University Press Southern Africa has added the Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: IsiXhosa and English to its impressively developing series of bilingual school dictionaries involving English and other official languages of South Africa. The series already has similar dictionaries in other languages namely isiZulu, Northern Sesotho and Afrikaans and is hoped to include the rest of the official languages of South Africa. The dictionary under review is expected to be useful for school learners, educators and the general isiXhosa-speaking community which had to make do with old and outdated dictionaries, most of which were not specifically produced with school learners in mind, especially in the present South African linguistic and educational milieu. For African metalexicographers, it is yet another moment of reflection on the direction that school lexicography is taking, and hopefully producing a symbiotic relationship between metalexicography and practical lexicography, given that the latter has been lacking with respect to school dictionaries.