About TshwaneDJe

TshwaneDJe Human Language Technology is a private company that develops and offers dictionary- and language-related software and consulting services. TshwaneDJe was co-founded by David Joffe and Prof. Dr. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (experts in software development and lexicography respectively) in 2002, based on, amongst others, a joint vision of improving the world and bridging cultures through better dictionaries.

Originally based in David Joffe's hometown of Pretoria (of which the traditional African name is 'Tshwane') in South Africa, in 2009 the company moved to Stellenbosch, and as of 2011 is located in Gordon's Bay, South Africa. We have consistently focused on professionalism, world-class quality, and delivering value to our customers. Originally dealing primarily with lexicography, the company has more recently broadened its focus to also cover terminology management software, corpus query software, software tools for translators, and general Language Services.

Our customers include Oxford University Press, Pearson, Longman, Macmillan, the Royal National Academy of Medicine (Spain), Grupo Clarín (Argentina), the Department of Justice (Canada), the Welsh Language Board, the Malaysian Institute of Language and Literature, Van Dale Lexicografie, Le Robert (France), the Royal Spanish Academy, the Institute for Dutch Lexicology (Netherlands), and more.

TshwaneDJe members are also active in academic research and have published many publications »

TshwaneDJe has a BEE Level 4 rating.

Jobs available at TshwaneDJe »

Core Team at a Glance

David Joffe (BSc Comp Sci, Univ. of Pretoria) »

Co-founder and owner of TshwaneDJe, and the original creator of the industry-leading TLex dictionary writing system. He has a BSc Computer Science degree and over 20 years' software development and project management experience. He previously built, a.o., a flight simulator visualization system for the South African Air Force, and mining training simulators for Anglo Platinum. He currently manages the development of TLex, in use by major publishers including Oxford University Press and Pearson, as well as the tlTerm terminology management software, tlTranslate Translation Memory software, tlCorpus concordance software, and tlDatabase database software.

He is also founder and director of DJ Software and Technology (djsoftware.tech), a UK/South African software development company that builds AI tools, simulation software, and language technology products used in real-world workflows.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ing. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver »

• Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (°1971) has been research professor of African Linguistics at Ghent University since 2015, and extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria since 2014.
• He holds an MSc in Microelectronic Engineering (1995), as well as an MA (1999) and PhD (2005) in African Languages and Cultures. In 2002 he co-founded TshwaneDJe HLT to develop lexicographic software, and in 2006 he was a founding member of the African Language Technology group.
• He is the author or co-author of close to 400 books, book chapters, journal articles and conference papers, mainly on Bantu corpus linguistics and lexicography in general. His publications also include award-winning dictionaries for Northern Sotho, Zulu and Xhosa, published with Oxford University Press, as well as various online dictionaries, amongst others the most popular one for Swahili.
• He is a two-term past President of Afrilex (2009-2013), and a past President of Euralex (2018-2021). Earlier, he also served in other capacities on the executive boards of Afrilex (2001-2009), Euralex (2006-2014), Asialex (2007-2013) and Australex (2008-2013). Most recently, he has been co-facilitating the creation of Americalex (2021-2023), and currently sits on the board of Globalex (2022-2023).