Don O
Expertise in African languages & ICT; agriculture, environment & rural development
How to promote better integration & synergism among ICT4D & L10n activities in Africa?
In Africa, information & communication technology for development (ICT4D) projects have rarely made provision for African languages a priority (even the most widely spoken ones), while emerging initiatives for localization (L10n) of computer software & internet content have relatively few links with ICT4D or development programs in general. Greater collaboration between ICT4D and L10n could benefit each as well as the multilingual societies they intend to serve. What do you see as the factors to address in promoting this?
Clarification added September 15, 2007:
Thank you for your answers which have been informative and thought-provoking. The Linked-In Q&A format does not facilitate follow ups or discussion, so I'd like to briefly offer a final perspective that hopefully captures the essence of my thinking and the postings here.
Africa is multilingual, and that reality has multiple aspects: numbers of speakers of the languages, various understandings and attitudes about the languages, written traditions of varying length against the backdrop of oral traditions, diverse treatment in language and education policies in different countries. It makes generalizations of almost any sort about language in Africa tricky. However it is certain that a great many Africans, however polyglot they may be, have little or no facility in the languages that dominate in ICT (and those people in turn tend to have lower formal education, income, status, and power)..
The introduction and spread of ICTs - which can readily support multiple languages - presents a lot of opportunities for development and education in Africa. A nexus of questions are involved in taking that potential to realities that positively impact people's lives, such as: which languages, which technologies, what kinds of strategies and partners for localization, and how to build the case for optimal multilingual use of ICT with "stakeholders.".The question I put up for the week relates to one relationship that I felt to merit particular attention. Thanks again for your replies.
Answers (7)
Ed D
collaboration, communication, convergence, Conmergence.com
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1), Internationalization and Localization (1)
WorldBank, UN, dspace.org, OpenOffice, Open Journal Systems, Open Conference Systems, W3C, ocw.mit.edu, OpenCourseWare Consortium, Curriki.org, OLPC, GLOSAS Global University, mediawiki plus innumerable religious groups just need to be educated as to the "business case" for it.
Scott W
Associate Program Officer for Iraq at International Relief and Development (IRD)
I think the way to get this going is to get Google on your side. They are always adapting their software to local languages - they just need to have it brought to their attention in a more substantive way. A market driven reason could be put forth; by catering to localized African languages they are building goodwill and market share before anyone else, which could pay off handsomely for them in the long run. Even the people behind OLPC have future profits in mind - and why not? I see it as a vote of confidence for the people being served by the goods and services.
Clarification added September 9, 2007:
Having Google on your side will make it worth it for web developers and local businesspeople to develop more web resources in the local languages, as their entire business model is built on targeted advertising.
I agree with the suggestion that you need significant usergroups. However the most likely groups to adopt ICT in Africa are the middle and higher classes, normally with a formal education which in most cases is given in english, french or portuguese. Languages that are fully supported in most software.
Although I see the possible need for localization to promote the broader use of ICTs in Africa, I have the feeling that the ICT penetrating at this moment is so low that addressing this issue has a higher priority in combination with initiatives to make ICTs useful in the local context. L10n can be a factor in the latter, but knowledge, experience and specific localized solutions are of higher importance in my view.
To support the need for potential large usergroups, both Microsoft and OpenOffice already support Swahili, probably because there are 110 million speakers in Africa.
Links:
Tunde A
Executive Director at African Languages Technology Initiative and Owner, Tiwa Systesm Limited
Africa seems to present a rather funny language picture. In my understanding of the problem, language status is a major issue. In most African countries, there are unconscious and even conscious tendencies that ascribe lower status to African languages relative to foreign languages. The unsaid and unwritten but yet obvious attitude therefore is to wait for the population that can't speak English/French/Portuguese to die off so that we can get on with our lives as 'neo-Africans'. I may not be able to speak for the whole of Africa, but in Nigeria today, of the three so called major languages, the only linguistic segment of the country in which the 'elite' proudly speak their language to their children is the Hausa/Fulani segment. The Yoruba and Igbo (Ibo) seem to derive their own pride in the inability of their children to speak their language. How sad!
I was overwhelmingly shouted down on 'Naija_IT_Professionals', a listserve of Nigerian IT professional (most of them working abroad) when I brought up the issue of language and ICT. As far as they were concerned, the need does not arise. English, they said is good enough. I was asked to give examples of Nigerian problems that can not be solved in English. I cited our (Alt-i) use of touch-screen information kiosks to disseminate HIV/AIDS information among Yoruba illiterates. Yet they still insisted it was a waste of time for Nigerians to use computers in any language other than English. How unfortunate!
Based on this attitude therefore, you may find that many localisation programmes are pursued merely for their novelty value because there is a very small population of users of these software in the local languages. As observed by Guido S, there is a wide disparity in literacy in English compared to literacy in the local languages in Ghana and I wish to confirm the same for Nigeria too. So, if people embark on localisation for mere novelty reasons, ICT4D practitioners are not likely to take the whole language issue seriously. Mind you I am not arguing against localisation I am only stating facts. For me the arguments for localisation go far beyond the issue of the population of prospective users and that may be a subject for another discussion.
Coming back to your point directly therefore, there is a much bigger problem of language status that is manifesting at smaller levels. If people do not value their languages and valorise them, issues concerning such languages may not feature in the ICT4D arena.
I think the problem transcends linking L10N efforts with ICT4D efforts, but the much bigger problem of linking language to development. We still have a long way to go at this level.
I seem to have done a lot more of explaining the situation than answering the question. The contributions of Ed D and Scott W have pointed the right directions. We need to address advocacy in the directions they have identified.
Tunde Adegbola
Andrew C
Research and Development Coordinator, Vicnet at State Library of Victoria
For ICT4D to leverage local languages, for for effective localisation, it is necessary to get the internationalisation right. One of the barriers for projects using local languages is the possibility that the languages may require the Latin script to be treated as a complex script.
When local languages are ignored in development programs, you always have the danger of excluding people form participating and benefitting.
Andj.
I think this issue requires thinking beyond existing ICT4D and L10n efforts. We have to enable both people in Africa and African "expats" with ways to participate.
There are hardly any newspapers or books in African languages. The African elite, and maybe even those who can read and write, often don't have a high esteem of African languages. This same attitude can be found in ICT4D. On the other hand, the success of Wikipedias in African languages shows that there is a huge potential for African languages. It's giving Africans (both in Africa as well as those elsewhere) opportunities to improve the position of their language and, in the long run, the opportunities of speakers of their language.
ICT4D projects should look for ways to delve into similar forms of open cooperation based on free licenses and seek more direct involvement of Africans all over the world.
Links:
The question that should be asked is why does ICT4D pay so little attention to localisation? If the interventions put forward by this sector are to enhance development yet that do not consider that untold millions who do not speak a dominant colonial language then one has to question if ICT4D is really about the recipients.
Localisation activities that take place in the African continent fall into two areas. Commercial companies trying to grow or protect market share. Language activists using FOSS localisation to drive access to technology.
What I see is simply that ICT4D players seem to focus on addressing a problem that they are usually not part of but are academic participants in. While localisation activities focus on addressing a known problem that the localisers are actually affected by. This might be a simplistic view and many ICT4D activists will disagree but it seems to play out over an over again in that ICT4D pays little attention to language to me indicating that it is focused on the coolness of the tech not the actual users.
Localisation has its own problem in that many localisers do not see their interventions as part of the whole. They will not move strategically to have impact wider then themselves. Or are naive about the true impact of their work, resulting in missed opportunities.
How could the two compliment each other and work closer together?
Probably the most simple is for ICT4D to pay attention to language. That simple step would mean that l10n experts would have to be brought into the mix. Its then becomes a concrete collaboration not a talk shop. With the two working together their will be new synergies resulting I think in positive change: ICT4D building l10n into their programs from the ground up, not as a phase 2 component. L10n activists learning from ICT4D and seeing their work as a crucial building block of the wider application of ICT.
