Established in 1968, the unit has defined and translated about 40,000 isiXhosa words, squashing the false belief that isiXhosa asitolikwa (isiXhosa cannot be translated).Publications include three volumes of a trilingual (isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans) dictionary.The unit has also published the Isichazi-magama sesiXhosa, a first of its kind dictionary that defines Xhosa words in isiXhosa, and a maths and science dictionary for primary school pupils published in 2014.