Mark Sebba

Mark Sebba is a South African born linguist, film-maker and contributor to ESAT.

Biography

Born in Cape Town in 1956, but grew up in in Johannesburg.

He really wanted to do theatre studies at the University of Cape Town, but his parents insisted he should stay at home, so he went to the University of the Witwatersrand instead, starting in 1974. The idea was to major in English, but actually majored in Linguistics as well as Mathematics and Russian. He then left the country in 1978 for England where he completed a PhD in Linguistics at York University and spent about 35 years as a lecturer in Linguistics, mostly at Lancaster University in England.

He also had a short-lived career as a freelance film maker in the 1980s, during which time he made some educational documentaries with Ralph Mzamo, a South African exile, under the aegis of an 'invented' production company called Meridian Productions.

He retired in 2021, and became a contributor to ESAT in 2024.

Sources

Films by Mark Sebba and Ralph Mzamo on YouTube[1]] I'm not sure if these should have an entry in ESAT? I've been retired since 2021, so now I have time to take up some of my old interests, but without the need to make money from them!