[New post] African languages take another step forward on the metaverse.
Africa Research Online posted: " Online translation service, Google Translate, has added another ten African languages to its list of supported languages, taking the total to 24. Google's Artificial Intelligence systems are now capable of translating 133 languages in all.&nbs" Africa Research Online
Online translation service, Google Translate, has added another ten African languages to its list of supported languages, taking the total to 24. Google's Artificial Intelligence systems are now capable of translating 133 languages in all.
Kenya's Nation newspaper says that the inclusion of these languages in the service will raise their international profile, popularity, appeal, and use. "For years, Google Translate has helped break down language barriers and connect communities all over the world. And we want to make this possible for even more people — especially those whose languages aren't represented in most technology," wrote Isaac Caswell, Senior Software Engineer, Google Translate in a blog post on May 11th.
However Google Translate has some way to go - there are over 2,000 living languages in Africa! Nigeria is home to the most, with 522 languages, according to research firm, Statista, followed by Cameroon with 275 languages, and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 217.
African Language Families - Wikimedia Commons
The ten newly-available African languages are spoken by a total of around 170 million people across the continent:
Bambara: The national language of Mali is also known as Bamana or Bamanankan and is spoken by more than 14 million people. Just 5 million are native speakers, with the rest using it as their second language. There are also a large number of speakers in Niger, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia and Côte d'Ivoire. Mali has 68 languages.
Ewe: Used by about seven million people in Ghana and Togo, Ewe is a national language of these two countries and is also spoken in Benin.
Krio: Spoken by about four million people in Sierra Leone (87% of the population), Krio is an English-based Creole language brought to the country by freed slaves. It has no official status in the country despite its widespread use. The official language of Sierra Leone is English.
Lingala: Widely spoken by more than 45 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of the Congo, Lingala evolved from another Bantu language, Bobangi, used by riverine traders along the Congo River. The language also has speakers in Angola, Central African Republic and southern South Sudan.
Luganda, Also known as Ganda, Luganda has its origin in the Buganda region of Uganda and is widely spoken by 20 million people in Uganda and Rwanda. The language has four dialects - Kooki, Ludiopa, Luvuma and Sese. It is the most spoken Ugandan language after English, the country's official language.
Oromo: Used by about 37 million people in Ethiopia and Kenya, Oromo is native to people of the state of Oromia and other related ethnic groups in neighbouring Horn of Africa countries, including north-east Kenya. It has the highest number of native speakers of any language in Ethiopia (around 33% of the population).
Sepedi: About 14 million people speakers in South Africa use this language, also known as Northern Sotho or "Sesotho sa Laboa". It is among the official languages of the country with users in Gauteng, Limpopo Province and Mpumalanga areas. Users can also be found in Botswana. South Africa has 11 official languages.
Tigrinya: Used by about eight million people in Eritrea and Ethiopia, Tigrinya is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea and the fourth most spoken language in Ethiopia after Amharic, Oromo, and Somali.
Tsonga: Used by about seven million people in eSwatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, Tsonga is mutually intelligible with Tswa and Ronga and the name "Tsonga" is often used as a cover term for all three. Tsonga is one of 11 official languages in South Africa, and under the name "Shangani" is recognised as an official language in Zimbabwe.
Twi: Also known as Akan kasa, or Akan-speak, Twi is used mainly by the Akan people of southern and central Ghana, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17–18 million speakers in total, including second-language speakers; about 80% of the Ghanaian population speaks Twi as a first or second language.
As of June 2022, Google has a further 103 languages in development, of which 9 are in so-called "beta" version, meaning they are close to final release. Three of these – Afra, Berber and Fula – are African languages. (Source: Wikipedia)
South Africa Gateways
Google's addition of new languages to its stable is a step forward in a campaign to widen the use of indigenous languages on the internet.
The United Nations declared 2022-2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, with the hope of creating a pathway for promoting mainstream linguistic diversity and multilingualism, including in the digital sphere.
Across Africa, language digital activists advocate for a multilingual web that aims to ensure that the information available on the internet is as diverse as the languages that exist on the continent. Using a do-it-yourself approach, language activists are making use of a variety of digital tools to tweet, localise software, create audio-visual materials and contribute to Wikimedia projects in their mother languages.
Ghana is one of the most pro-active countries. The Dagbani Wikimedians User Group, is spearheading a project to increase the visibility of the Dagbani language on the internet. Dagbani is spoken by approximately three million people in the north of Ghana, including some two million indigenous speakers. To-date, 4,000 Dagbani words have been recorded and uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. The team works with language experts to ensure correct spellings and to verify the meanings of the words.
Elsewhere in Ghana, activists are turning to schools to promote the implementation of mother tongue-based bilingual education in policy and classrooms with the hope that this extends into online spaces. Mama Adjetey-Nii Owoo, founder and lead researcher at https://www.afroliteracies.net , a think tank for indigenous African Languages, has developed bi-lingual e-learning resources and curriculum materials, e-books and instruction books for use in primary schools with their flagship programme based on Akan, the most widely spoken language in Ghana.
Writing on the website of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) in November 2021, Evelyn Sirri said: "It is critical that languages and cultures of African people get amplified on different digital platforms as a way of preserving them and making online content more accessible and relevant to African audiences. Currently, the internet is constructed to suit the interests of the dominant language groups found online, thus excluding some communities from online representation and discourse."
For further information about the Africa Research Bulletin:
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