Gobabis Gymnasium Wins ATKV Idiom Competition

Karlien Visser and WP Oosthuizen, pupils from Gobabis Gymnasium, were recently announced the winners of the 2018 idiom competition hosted by the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereniging (ATKV) and NBC’s Hartklop FM.

With Bank Windhoek as the main sponsor, the competition saw the Gobabis Gymnasium team and that of Elnatan Private School, represented by twin sisters Elsa and Anri Visser, battle it out in a closely contested radio broadcast final held at the Hartklop FM studio in Windhoek.

Team Gobabis Gymnasium proved to be slightly better prepared than their opponents, resulting in them winning the trophy and cash prizes sponsored by Bank Windhoek, while the runners-up received cash prizes as well.

Visser, who has enjoyed the competition throughout her secondary education, broke down in tears of joy once she heard that her school was the victor for the day.

The Grade 12 pupil, who bid farewell to the competition as she embarks on tertiary education, said that the ATKV Idiom Competition means a lot to her and that she is proud to have been a participant over the years.

In its 14th consecutive year, between 20 and 30 schools from across the country took part in the competition. Pupils from the competing schools challenged each other in various categories, which included completing Afrikaans idioms, forming new idioms with keywords and a rapid fire section where the meanings of idioms were given.

The aim of the competition is to promote the Afrikaans language and to familiarise school pupils with Afrikaans expressions and idioms. There are more than 8 000 idioms and expressions in the Afrikaans language, which the pupils had to memorise and use correctly.

Bank Windhoek’s coordinator of sponsorships and events, Suzette January, who witnessed the finals, said: “Congratulations to the four pupils for making it this far. Your schools must be really proud of your achievements. We would like to encourage all the participants and the winners to make use of the idioms they have learnt and to keep on painting pictures with their words”.

The ATKV idiom competition was started by University of Namibia lecturers Dr Dolores Wolfgaardt and Kleintjie Muller. They saw the opportunity to keep the heritage of the Afrikaans language alive by introducing the competition for pupils of the ATKV Windhoek branch.

Schools were allowed to enter the competition with a team of two pupils per school, who would then challenge each other on a knock-out-round radio programme hosted by Hartklop FM. The programme was broadcast every Wednesday afternoon and ran until mid-October.

– Bank Windhoek

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