Pierre de Villiers Pienaar
Pierre de Villiers Pienaar (1904–1978) was a South African Afrikaans academic and Professor at University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and later at University of Pretoria, who pioneered Speech Language Therapy in South Africa[1] and specialising in Audiology and Lexicography as well as being an Afrikaans author.
[4] Pierre de Villiers Pienaar was born on 11 August 1904 on the farm, 'Elandsfontein', Gatsrand (currently in the Fochville district), that was destroyed in The Anglo-Boer War during the scorched earth text campaign.
In 1926 the University of the Witwatersrand awarded him the degree Master of Arts with distinction for his research in phonetics and general linguistics.
[4] The following year P. was awarded a Union Bursary to further his studies in Utrecht, Netherlands (September 1927 – April 1928), and Hamburg, Germany (1928–1929), where he continued his research in general linguistics and the phonetics of Afrikaans at the Department of Experimental Phonetics of the University of Hamburg.
(Theron was reburied in 1903 to the family cemetery of his late fiancée Hannie Neethling, on her father's farm Eikenhof.
Through his efforts the University of the Witwatersrand in 1948, instituted a four-year degree course with Phonetics and Logopedics as major subjects, the first of its kind in South Africa.
During this time he put forward proposals to create a professional degree course in Logopedics at the university of Pretoria.
[4] In 1959 P. was appointed Professor and head of the new Department of Speech Science, Logopedics and Audiology at the University of Pretoria.
He chaired this department and remained Director of the Clinic till the end of 1969 when he reached retirement age.
[8][9] To benefit from his vast experience, the University of Pretoria continued to retain his services by appointing him as temporary lecturer in 1970.
He was appointed Head of the Speech Archives sponsored by the Department of National Education and the Human Sciences Research Council.
[4] P. was a member of several scientific societies and served on a number of commissions, committees and councils of the Government and other institutions such as the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the Department of Education, the Film Council, the Department of Health, the South African Academy of Arts and Science, the Transoranje Institute for Special Education, the South African Council for the Deaf, and others.
[4] Noteworthy, he served on the Language Advisory Committee of the SABC (1957–1968);[4] the Advisory Committee for Language Laboratories of the Government Department of Education, Arts and Science; the Film Board of the Republic of South Africa since its inception; the Board of the Transoranje Institute for Special Education as representative of the Department of National Education; the editorial board of Folia Phoniatrica, the journal published by the International Logopedic and Phoniatric Society; the Commission appointed by the Department of Health to investigate the use and abuse of hearing aids in South Africa; clinical and technical committees of the South African Council for the Deaf, the Transoranje School for Partially Hearing Children, the National Committee for Noise Control in South Africa, and the South African Speech and Hearing Association.
During 1962, and again in 1965, he received grants from the Transoranje Institute and the National Council for the Deaf to attend international conferences dealing with Logopedics and Audiology.
In 1963 the 'Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns' awarded him their 'Erepenning' for his work in the field of Afrikaans Phonetics.
The Journal of the South African Speech and Hearing Association published a special issue in honour of P. in 1974.
[4] As the son of Matthys Michiel Pienaar, a Boer who fought the British imperialist armies in both the first and second Anglo-Boer war, P. was a staunch supporter of the political ideology of former Prime Minister, Gen. J.M.B.
He championed the Afrikaner cause (that was in desperate need after the scorched earth policy of the British army during the second Anglo-Boer war) by being a founding member of the 'Handhawersbond' (Upholding Association) and was the first editor of their journal 'Die Handhawer'.
van den Heever (a famous writer and head of the Department of Afrikaans and Netherlands at the University of the Witwatersrand who had recently published a biography on Gen. Hertzog) to serve as co-editor of the Kultuurgeskiedenis van die Afrikaner (Cultural History of the Afrikaner).
His other cultural works are Opera en Sanger (1951); and as sole editor, an abridged (single volume) and revised edition of the Kultuurgeskiedenis van die Afrikaner (1968).
[4] During the period 1929–1940 he wrote a number of literary works: Skakels van die Ketting (Links of a chain) (1928); Ruth e.a.
[4] In August 1977 Pierre de Villiers Pienaar suffered a massive stroke that left him paralysed and with no speech.
