The Casabanca Statement, 2005

A little more than ten years ago, the first PanAfrican Localisation (PAL) Workshop, held in Casablanca, Morocco on 13-15 June 2005, concluded with a short statement or declaration. I am reposting it here with the thought that a decade later, it is worth revisiting to measure how much has and has not been accomplished, and consider what might be next.

The Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funded the PAL project in 2005-08, followed by the African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) in 2008-11. Although ANLoc continues as a loose network, there is currently no organization or donor support comparable to what there was before.

The Casablanca Statement is included below in English and French - the two working languages of the workshop in June 2005 - as well as in Portuguese, Arabic, and N'Ko translations. There was talk of translations into other Africa languages, but as far as I know, no others have yet been done.

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Casablanca Statement

African localisation experts met in Casablanca in a workshop organised by Kabissa with Bisharat under IDRC funding, and in collaboration with MTDS and the Casablanca Technopark centre. The event benefitted from contributions from the Moroccan Minister-Delegate to the Prime Minister in Charge of General and Economic Affairs, the Canadian Ambassador to Morocco, and experts from other continents.

After three days of work, the participants in the meeting reached the following conclusions:

1. Limiting people to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in a foreign language tends to exacerbate the digital divide; makes ICT adoption long, difficult, and expensive; and impoverishes local culture.
2. Localisation makes ICT more accessible to everybody, including users from rural areas and young students, reinforcing the importance of our culture and helping us preserve our identity.
3. Localisation of ICT into indigenous African languages is therefore key to rapid and fair development in Africa.
4. For localisation to succeed and have its maximum impact in society, collaboration among governments, civil society, educators, linguists, computer professionals, standards organisations and development agencies is necessary.

We, the participants, commit ourselves to promoting this vision and working towards social development in Africa through ICT localisation.

Casablanca, 15 June 2005

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Déclaration de Casablanca

Des experts Africains en localisation se sont réunis à Casablanca lors d'un atelier organisé par Kabissa avec Bisharat, financé par le CRDI et avec la collaboration de MTDS et du centre Technopark de Casablanca. La rencontre a profité de la collaboration du Ministre délégué auprès du Premier Ministre chargé des Affaires économiques et générales du Maroc, de l'ambassadeur du Canada au Maroc, et d'experts d'autres continents.

Après trois jours de travaux, les participants ont conclu comme suit :

1. Restreindre les utilisateurs des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) à une langue étrangère tend à exacerber la fracture numérique, rend l'adoption des TIC longue, difficile et onéreuse, et enfin appauvrit les cultures locales.
2. La localisation rend les TIC accessibles à tous, y compris aux utilisateurs ruraux et aux écoliers ; elles renforcent l'importance de notre culture et nous aident à garder notre identité.
3. La localisation des TIC en langues indigènes d'Afrique est par conséquent une des clés du développement rapide et équitable en Afrique.
4. Le succès et l'impact maximal de la localisation dans la société exige la collaboration des gouvernements, de la société civile, des professionnels de l'éducation et de l'informatique, des linguistes, des organismes de normalisation et des agences de développement.

Nous, les participants, nous engageons à promouvoir cette vision et à travailler au développement social de l'Afrique par le biais de la localisation des TIC.

Fait à Casablanca le 15 juin 2005

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Declaração de Casablanca

Peritos em localização de varias partes de África reuniram-se em Casablanca para participarem de um seminário organizado por Kabissa e Bisharat, financiado pelo IDRC/CRDI em colaboração com MTDS e o Centro Technopark de Casablanca. O evento teve o benefício de contribuições pelo Secretario do Primeiro-ministro Marroquino para Assuntos Económicos e Gerais, o Embaixador Canadense em Marrocos e peritos de outros continentes.

Após três dias do trabalho, os participantes na reunião chegaram às seguintes conclusões:

1. Limitar as pessoas ao uso da tecnologia de informação e de comunicação (TIC) numa língua estrangeira, por regra aumenta o fosso digital; torna a adopção de TICs um processo longo, difícil, e caro; e empobrece a cultura local.
2. Localização torna TIC mais acessível a todos, incluindo usuários das áreas rurais e estudantes jovens, reforçando a importancia da cultura própria e ajudando a preservar a identidade.
3. A localização de TIC em línguas africanas indígenas é consequentemente chave ao desenvolvimento rápido e justo em África.
4. Para que localização seja um sucesso e tenha o maior impacto na sociedade, é necessária a colaboração entre governos, a sociedade civil, os educadores, os linguistas, os profissionais de informática, as organizações de padrões e as agências de desenvolvimento.

Nós, os participantes, cometemo-nos a promover esta visão e a desempenhar esforços para o desenvolvimento social em África através de localização de TIC.

Casablanca, aos 15 de Junho, 2005

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بيان الدار البيضاء

التقى خبراء التطويع والتعريب الأفريقيون بالدار البيضاء في ورشة عمل تحت رعاية كابيسا (Kabissa) وبشارات بتمويل من مركز بحوث التنمية الدولي (IDRC)، وبالتنسيق مع MTDS والمنتزه التقني "تكنوبارك الدار البيضاء". وحقق هذا الحدث استفادة رائعة من المشاركات والإسهامات التي قدمها الوزير المغربي المفوض من قِبل رئيس الوزراء والمعني بالشؤون الاقتصادية والنواحي العامة، والسفير الكندي بالمغرب، بالإضافة إلى خبراء من قارات أخرى.

وبعد ثلاثة أيام من العمل، توصل المشاركون في الاجتماع إلى النتائج التالية:

• يؤدي قصر استخدام الفرد لتكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات (ICT) على لغة أجنبية دون اللغة المحلية إلى تفاقم الفجوة الرقمية واتساعها، وزيادة الفترة الزمنية المستغرقة لنشر استخدام تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات وصعوبة تحقيق ذلك مع ارتفاع في التكلفة، إضافًة إلى إضعاف الثقافة المحلية.
• يعمل التطويع والتعريب على إتاحة إمكانية استخدام تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات للجميع، بما في ذلك المستخدمون من المناطق الريفية والطلبة صغار السن؛ مما يؤكد على أهمية حضارتنا ويدعمها ويتيح لنا الاحتفاظ بهويتنا الثقافية.
• يعد تطويع تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات وتعريبها إلى اللغات الأفريقية القومية، بالنظر لما سبق، عاملاً أساسيًا للتطوير والتنمية بخطى سريعة وبصورة عادلة في القارة الأفريقية.
• يجب على كل من الحكومات والمجتمع المدني والعاملين بمجال التعليم واللغة، وكذلك محترفي الكمبيوتر وهيئات التطوير والتنمية والمؤسسات الرسمية التعاون والتضامن لإنجاح صناعة التطويع والتعريب وإتيان ثمارها على النحو المرجو منها.

ونلتزم نحن المشاركون بتعزيز هذه الرؤية ودعمها والعمل نحو تحقيق مزيد من التنمية الاجتماعية في أفريقيا من خلال تطويع وتعريب تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات.

الدار البيضاء، 15 يونيو 2005

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English & French versions came out of the Workshop. Portuguese translated by Mr. Rui Correia. Arabic translated by Dr. Adel El Zaim. N'Ko translated by Prof. Baba Mamady Diané (text was pre-Unicode).

On diacritics & modified characters in African languages

Various past posts on Beyond Niamey have touched on aspects of Latin-based orthographies of many African languages, especially "extended Latin," which is a technical term for characters and diacritics beyond the basic letters we use in English (and the common accented characters used in major European languages). Since I anticipate returning to this topic in some future posts, I thought I'd reach back to some background I wrote on the old A12n-Collaboration list in 2006.

The context was a request from Kasahorow in their June 2006 newsletter for feedback on the topic of diacritics. Keep in mind that the technical context of this issue has changed remarkably over the past decade, to where the "nightmare" of diacritics for electronic publishers is no longer such a problem. Nevertheless, the question of why use diacritics (or modified characters) at all is probably one that still gets asked regardless of improvements in how software handles complex scripts.

Yoruba and Igbo are classic examples of diacritic heaven. However, in reality what works well for linguists and non-native learners of these two languages is a nightmare for electronic publishers.

We are sampling a professional opinion to further understand whether the diacritics are a vestigial crutch for the non-native transcribers who first set these languages to text or a necessary part of the textual representation of these recently alphabetized languages.

It is often the case that writing in languages with young written histories closely follows the oral form hence the need for diacritics to preserve the tone variations of the spoken word. However, the problem of ambiguity in the absence of diacritics can be solved with new writing techniques. (from Kasahorow, reproduced in posting on A12n-Collab, 16 June 2006)

My long reply on A12n-Collab (24 June 2006) addresses some assumptions about the origins of extended and complex Latin orthographies for many African languages, making reference to some of the colonial and post-independence history. I've layered in links to various topics discussed, and added two footnotes:

Here's a stab at responding to Kasahorow's request for feedback on the issue of diacritics in African language transcriptions.

First I'd want to put the issue in historical perspective since discussions on orthographies in Africa generally, and for the specific languages mentioned (Yoruba, Igbo), go back decades or in some cases well over a century. It is true that the Latin-based transcriptions of African languages have their origins in the colonial period or just before, spearheaded by missionaries and in some cases colonial administrators, but this should not discredit them (I'll touch on this issue later, below).

Yoruba is an interesting case, since a Yoruba, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, played a major role in developing the Latin orthography for the language before the partition of Africa. A major feature of the alphabet was the use of small vertical lines under 3 letters that had different sounds than in English (generally now we see dots under). Another feature is tone marking, since among tonal languages, Yoruba is apparently one of the more complex.

Igbo, for which a standard orthography was adopted almost a century later (c. 1960) was also apparently written in the late 1800s. It also used marks under two letters and a dot over an n to distinguish meaningfully different sounds, and also has meaningfully significant tones.

By the 1920s there were more concerted efforts to devise consistent orthographies. One notable resume of this effort is the Practical Orthography of African Languages (1930)* which can be read at http://www.bisharat.net/Documents/poal30.htm . Many of the additional letters proposed were evidently adopted directly from the International Phonetic Alphabet, which had its origins in the late 19th century. It is of interest to note that this proposed orthography appears to have been a major influence on later African discussions of transcription of the continent's languages, such as Bamako 1966 and Niamey 1978.

The text of the Practical Orthography is in some places unfortunately phrased in the condescending language of colonialism, but there are some observations that stand the test of time, such as part of the rationale for modified Latin letters rather than diacritics to mark different sounds: "For practical purposes in everyday life diacritic marks constitute a difficulty and a danger. In the first place it is found that in current writing these marks are liable to be altered so as to be unrecognizable and even omitted altogether, as every one who has had to read written texts in African languages will readily acknowledge. Such alterations and omissions of diacritic marks are also frequently found in print. ..."

Such a situation is probably typical of young writing systems (others may want to comment), where there are not the cultural and pedagogical stays that support continued use of, say, accent marks in French or vowel marks in Arabic. I would offer that it is not so much the diacritics themselves that are the problem, but whether the educational system teaches their use consistently.

Note in any event that the use of this proposed African alphabet of 1930 did not supersede the original one for Yoruba; also it did not get established in southern Africa. For all the inconvenience that the undermarks (be they dots or lines of whatever sort) presented for typographers then, it apparently was not enough to lead to their abandonment in favor of the Practical Orthography. By now, there is a lot more material in Yoruba using the orthography developed in the 19th century. (On the other hand, Yoruba tongues spoken in Benin are written using a system related to the Practical Orthography and rules discussed in Bamako 1966, etc.) I'll return to the issue of tone marks shortly.

In the case of Igbo, the writing system was apparently standardized somewhat later, but it is worth noting that the effort in 1998 of one Nigerian linguist to introduce a different orthography for Igbo in his publication of a dictionary has met with a vary unfavorable reaction, at least on the part of experts.

This leads one back to part of the question in the Kasahorow newsletter: whether such writing systems work really more for the linguists and language experts than for wider use. This I think is not a helpful dichotomy. Even a historically young writing system such as those of Yoruba and Igbo have already become part of the culture in certain ways. This is probably a major reason why the Practical Orthography did not replace the use of dot-under characters in southern Nigeria 70 years ago - the "look" of Yoruba or of Igbo, even to those not literate in those languages probably, included and still includes marks under.

There is a point of view that not only the diacritics are problematic, but the extended characters too - basically anything more than the alphabet as used in English or perhaps French. I had occasion once to speak with the (American) co-author of a bilingual dictionary for a West African language who expressed the opinion that the extended characters in the official orthography were "silly" and asked rhetorically why they don't they just use combinations of ASCII characters. (Some foreigners dismiss attention to whole languages in such terms, but here was someone dismissing only the orthography chosen for one of the languages.)

Ultimately I think it is helpful to remember that in addition to the prominent role of non-African experts in the development of most orthographies for African languages, non-Africans may also be prominent in offering negative opinions about it all. In fact it may be that non-Africans actually dominate both sides of any discussion on the utility of such matters as diacritic characters, extended characters, and tone marks. (I admittedly may be implicated in this too, though I do try to encourage discussion in which Africans dominate - part of the reason for instance that I sought and posted various African documents on language policy, etc.)

This is a dynamic sadly common to so much of development and African studies over the years - outsider experts effectively dominate discussion and analysis of African development, ultimately occupying if not pre-empting both sides of any major debate. (If anyone's interested I can discuss this offlist.) At the same time it is important to point out that, such as with Bishop Crowther and with the later UNESCO-sponsored conferences on African language transcription, Africans have not been bystanders in the development of Latin-based orthographies for their languages. The history of this needs to be formally explored in more detail (I'm aware of only one in-depth historical study that dealt with Hausa orthography**). In other words, what I'm trying to say by all of this is that the issue cannot be reduced to one of external imposition of complexity vs. unstated indigenous preference for something simpler.

As for tone marks, these may not be the big problem that people often think they are. Africa has many tonal languages and in many cases the need to mark tones is not that apparent. Bambara and Hausa for instance are commonly written in Latin transcription without tone marks since the context usually makes the meaning clear. Tone marks can be used to disambiguate text. We've discussed this matter some already on A12n-collab. Yoruba and Igbo may not be as forgiving in this matter as some other languages. Or maybe tone marks could be optional for ordinary text - mainly for disambiguation (is this the case for newspapers in Yoruba already?).

There was a proposal made by Prof. Constancio K. Nakuma, a Ghanaian researcher on the Dagaare language of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso, to use a new set of spelling conventions to indicate tones in text in that language (one of these as I recall was insertion of an "h" after vowels to indicate high tone). Not sure if this is the "new approach" Kasahorow alludes to. There is perhaps merit to this particular approach, but it is not widely understood and certainly introduction of such a system for languages that do not use it would lead to some confusion and arguably hinder development and literacy in these languages.

Part of the problem as I've already mentioned, is that for the writing systems for many African languages, one is not starting with a blank slate. Proposing new systems - whether they be ingenious or dumbed-down - means undoing or discounting what has been in place for a while. It is not impossible, but certainly would lead to lost time even in the optimal case where there is a broad agreement on the course of action to take.

And even with less widely spoken languages in proximity with the more widely spoken ones, there may be issues of "harmonization" of transcriptions - does it make sense to have very different orthographies for diverse languages in a given geographic area when there already will be a differences with the English / French / Portuguese used officially and in later schooling?

Anyway this has been a bit longwinded as there are a number of matters implied even by as simple a question as you pose. Returning to the starting point of the question, you actually raise the issue in the context not of the native-speaking user but the electronic publisher. This is a real issue but much more narrow and IMO not a significant enough issue to use to justify significant changes in a writing system. It may actually be the case that the problems encountered by typesetters today will be overcome well before any new writing system designed to avoid them is established.

In sum therefore, I'd suggest that:

1. While it is good, and even necessary to have more African than foreign participation in discussions about (writing) African languages, the topic area is not new and there is a history within Africa with African dimensions that shouldn't be overlooked.
2. The origin of the writing system needn't be an issue: Latin script replaced the indigenous writing systems of northern Europe via the Christian church - and it was adapted to the non-romance languages by clergy and specialists; Arabic was brought to the Sahel centuries ago and adapted to indigenous tongues by the few learned in Islam and Arabic language; etc..
3. Changing writing systems to something more logical is discussed for a lot of languages (including such as English and French) but in the end such a process of changing makes less sense (and costs more) than to make the best of what one has. It may be the "right" thing to do in some cases (Turkey shifted from Arabic to Latin script, for example, and script changes are discussed for a number of languages elsewhere), but is probably best taken on the highest appropriate official level (usually a country government, in consultation with experts and the relevant community of speakers, and ideally also governments of neighboring states where the language is spoken).

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Notes:
* The 1930 publication of the Practical Orthography of African Languages was the revised edition of the original 1928 publication. 
** John Edward Philips, 2000, Spurious Arabic: Hausa and Colonial Nigeria, Madison, WI: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin. A table from the book comparing Ajami and Boko Hausa alphabets is available online. An article available online offers a shorter treatment of topics from or related to the book: John Edward Philips, 2004, "Hausa in the Twentieth Century: An Overview," Sudanic Africa, 15: 55-84.

(See also on this blog, "More on standard orthographies of African languages," 16 Nov. 2013.)

UNESCO literacy prizes for Mozambique & Madagascar

On Wednesday 22 July, UNESCO announced the recipients of the 2015 prizes for literacy efforts. Organizations in five countries (of which two in Africa - Madagascar and Mozambique) each received one of two categories of prizes:

• The UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize (2 annually)
• Associação Progresso, Mozambique
• National Institute of Education
  National Institute of Education, Sri Lanka
• The UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy (3 annually)
• La Plateforme des associations chargées de l’ASAMA et du post-ASAMA, Madagascar
• La Escuela Juan Luis Vives de Valparaíso, Chile
• Svatobor, Slovakia

King Sejong Literacy Prize

Of the two prizes, the King Sejong prize, named after the Korean monarch who designed Hangul (the Korean script), "gives special consideration to the promotion of mother-tongue languages in developing countries."

The Associação Progresso was described in the UNESCO release as "a Mozambican nongovernmental organization recognized for its effective ‘Literacy in Local Languages, Springboard for Gender Equality’ programme in Mozambican languages. It has achieved good results by building on international standards and research, training facilitators and involving the community in designing, monitoring and improving delivery."

Some background on Associação Progresso is available in a 2009 report mentioning its activities:*

“This case involves a partnership between Associação Progresso in Mozambique, and CODE, a Canadian organisation specialised in the promotion of quality primary education. Progresso and CODE have been working to increase the quality of education in the two Northern provinces of Mozambique for over 15 years. The activities in their joint programme, 'Promotion of a Literate Environment in Mozambique,' include the provision of reading and learning materials in Portuguese and local languages, skills development for primary teachers and adult literacy teachers, and training of education officers in specialised functions such as education planning, in-service training, and the monitoring of teaching and learning.

“Progresso and CODE work in close cooperation with the Mozambican Ministry of Education and Culture at the national and provincial levels. Their experience and innovative practices have influenced government policy, notably through the inclusion of a bilingual curriculum in the Government of Mozambique’s Education Sector Strategic Plan. ...”

It is unfortunate that such descriptions do not name the languages involved. If the activities are still concentrated in the north of the country, the languages might include for example: Makhuwa; Lomwe; Yao; and Nyanja.

Confucius Prize for Literacy 

The other prize, named after the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, recognizes "the activities of outstanding individuals, governments or governmental agencies and NGOs whose work in literacy serves rural adults and out-of-school youth, particularly women and girls." Often these also involve first languages.

According to the UNESCO release, La Plateforme des associations chargées de l’ASAMA et du post-ASAMA (Platform of Associations in Charge of ASAMA** and Post-ASAMA) is "an NGO in Madagascar that developed a comprehensive approach to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by establishing partnerships between the national authorities and 66 other NGOs. The programme provides a range of literacy courses for illiterates who account for 40% of the population, technical and vocational training at all levels and supports graduates in their efforts to find employment or start their own business."

It is not specified which language or languages are used, and I haven't found further information on that question elsewhere, but it may include literacy in Malagasy.

Past African winners of UNESCO literacy prizes

In past years, other African organizations have also received UNESCO literacy prizes. A list of African awardees over the previous seven years is presented below, with brief information on languages, where available.

Year	King Sejong Literacy Prize	Confucius Prize for Literacy
2014	L’Association pour la promotion de l’éducation non formelle du Burkina Faso (BF-APENF), Burkina Faso. - "activities in five local languages"	L’Association algérienne d’alphabétisation « IQRAA » (which means "read" in Arabic), Algeria. Bridges to the Future initiative of Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy, South Africa & International Literacy Institute, USA. - "reaches primary school children and illiterate adults through a specially designed multilingual computer program that tries to bring a more cohesive learning experience to the learner."
2013	La Fédération des associations de promotion des langues du Guéra, Chad.  - literacy in maternal languages of Guéra region	Savoir pour mieux vivre (SAPOMIVIE), Ivory Coast. - literacy in maternal languages and a publication "translated into 23 languages including Senufo and Bambara. Maninka, Attié, Abidji, Kulango or Dan syllabaries are used." (Gban is also mentioned)  Directorate of Adult Education of the Ministry of Education, Namibia.  - "basic literacy course consists of a 3-year training, averaging some 240 hours per annum. The first two years combine basic mother tongue functional literacy, offered in eleven local languages and life skills. English is introduced during the third part of the training."
2012	National Adult Literacy Programme, Pentecostal Church, Rwanda. - (no specific mention of languages) (Honorable mention) Programme d’alphabétisation fonctionnelle à l’intention des femmes et des filles à travers des groupes de femmes et la formation tout au long de la vie of the Direction de l’alphabétisation et de l’éducation des adultes, Niger. - "covers not only reading, writing and counting in the mother tongues but also life skills and practical and productive activities" (Honorable mention) Programme d’alphabétisation et de post-alphabétisation : autonomisation et intégration socio-économique des femmes marocaines of the Direction de l’élimination de l’analphabétisme, Morocco.  - (no specific mention of languages)	(no African recipients this year)
2011	Service national d’alphabétisation, Burundi. - "The government-funded courses take place in more than 900 centres across the country and are delivered in the national language, Kirundi."	Collectif ALPHA UJUVI, D.R. Congo. - "... Peace Hut scheme ... runs alongside literacy classes for adults and young people in both Swahili and French."
2010	General Directorate of Adult Training, Cape Verde. - "Portuguese language lessons draw on real life in Cape Verde and are held in the national language, Crioulo, in all of the 17 education and adult education centres scattered throughout the archipelago."	Females for Families program of the Governrate of Ismailia, Egypt. - (no specific mention of languages) (Honorable mention) Women Land Rights Project, Coalition of Women Farmers, Malawi. -  (no specific mention of languages)
2009	Tin Tua, Burkina Faso. - "curriculum in five local languages covering basic literacy and numeracy skills along with practical knowledge about health, hygiene, human rights, gender and farming."	(no African recipients this year)
2008	Reflect and HIV/AIDS program of People's Action Forum, Zambia. - "The Jury admired the association’s use of local languages in teaching the rural women in their literacy programmes to be autonomous, following the motto: 'rather than wait for government to decide, people should be involved in the decision-making process.'"	Adult and Non-Formal Education Association (ANFEAE), Ethiopia. Operation Upgrade, South Africa. [information on the above two awardees from Wikipedia]

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* Réal Lavergne and Jacqueline Wood, "Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness: Exploration of Experience and Good Practice. A Reference Document" (2nd ed.), Prepared for the Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness, August 31, 2009.
** ASAMA stands for Asa sekoly avotra ho an'ny Malagasy in Malagasy and Action Scolaire d'Appoint pour les Malagasy Adolescent in French.

Literacy in Senegal; languages unmentioned

I first got interested in African languages after my experience working in the field in Togo, where so much happened around me in languages that I never mastered beyond greetings and a few phrases. Later in Mali and Guinea, I made special efforts to learn their languages for working and living on community levels. This experience and subsequent research and observation have convinced me of the importance of African languages in development work (even for foreigners and outside-funded projects), and attuned me to how language is and is not mentioned in various discussions and descriptions of development work in Africa.

Source: EDC, "Youth Volunteers Can Contribute to Significant Reading
Gains: Evidence from the HYVALL project in Senegal," March 2015

So it was with interest that I looked at some articles on the "Harnessing Youth Volunteers as Literacy Leaders" (HYVALL) project in Senegal, which is funded by USAID under its All Children Reading Grand Challenge program, and implemented by YMCA Senegal with the US non-governmental organization, Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). I found it striking that one, and another, and then another article about this literacy effort made no mention at all of the language or languages used.

Only when listening to a YouTube video by two members of  YMCA Senegal could one learn that the students were discussing French lessons in "mother tongues" (French being the medium of instruction). But those languages for some reason were not named (presumably Wolof, the most spoken language in Senegal, is one of them).

This is an interesting approach, making more formal outside of school and via peer tutoring the informal practice sometimes seen in African classrooms of the teacher explaining aspects of a lesson formally given in the Europhone language of instruction in the students' first language. However it also raises the question whether HYVALL makes any effort to expand students' literacy skills in their first language, and towards achieving "pluriliteracy" - or "multilingual literacy" in all their spoken languages.

I've discussed pluriliteracy in African Languages in a Digital Age (pp. 40-41), as well as in a blog posting last year. Puriliteracy may not be the explicit goal of education or literacy efforts in Africa, although mother-tongue based/multilingual education may imply that outcome to a degree, and literacy in different languages or scripts is rarely if ever discussed in statistics. However it would seem to merit prioritization by programs such as All Children Reading.

As much as mention of languages, and African languages in particular, might be omitted from communication about foreign-funded literacy projects, African languages seem often to be absent from the design and content of the projects themselves.

More on book donations to Africa

My previous post on "Linguistic imbalance in book donations to Africa" elicited a reply from Hans Zell, who informed me of work he and Raphaël Thierry have done on a two part study under the collective title "Book donation programmes for Africa: Time for a reappraisal? Two perspectives," which is to be published later this year in African Research & Documentation (No. 127, 2015). Pre-publication versions are available on Academia.edu:

• "Part I: Book Donation Programmes in English-speaking Africa," by Hans M. Zell (107 pp.)
• "Part II: Le don de livre, mais à quel prix, et en échange de quoi? Un regard sur le don de livre en Afrique francophone," by Raphaël Thierry (in French, with abstract in English; 77 pp.)

I had not been aware of this work, which addresses a real gap in research on book donations to Africa and their impact. From a quick perusal it certainly seems that both parts go into considerable depth, including on aspects of the languages of books donated to Africa, and with reference to a large number of programs. If you are interested in the subject of book donations to Africa, add these to your reading list.

Addendum (20 July 20)

Here is the full citation for the study in Madagascar mentioned in the previous posting:

• Laurence Hugues and Marie Michèle Razafintsalama, "Quelles « nouvelles » pratiques du don de livres pour répondre au besoin des jeunes lecteurs africains dans les bibliothèques?" / "What 'new' book donation practices can meet the needs of young African readers in libraries?" Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 144 - Africa with Libraries for Children and Young Adults. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France. 

In responding to my blog posting, Laurence Hugues called my attention to a recent publication on e-books to Africa:

• Matthieu Joulin, "Le don de livres numériques : quelles logiques et quels enjeux?" Alliance-Lab / Alliance Internationale des Éditeurs [website], 23 mars 2015

Both of the above mention the issue of the language(s) of publication of the books or e-books donated to Africa, and both were cited and discussed by Hans Zell and Raphaël Thierry in their respective articles.

One interesting subject touched on by all of the above is that of a new "charter" or set of agreed-upon standards and best practices for book donations (not just limited to Africa). A "Charte de Don des Livres" was created in 2005 by several organizations including UNESCO, but never translated (as far as I can find) into English. That document did not specifically mention languages at all, although it does recommend (Article 9) that book donations take into account the cultural identities of recipient communities.

In researching my original posting on the "linguistic imbalance" of book donations to Africa, I came across an article by the executive director of Books for Africa, which argues the case for donating English-language (not African language) materials:

• Patrick Plonski, "Providing Books For Schools and Libraries in Africa: What Is the Impact on Literacy?" Paper presented at the 53rd annual meeting of the African Studies Association, San Francisco, California, November 2010.

There is clearly a range of opinions and experience regarding best practices, so it does seem that the time is ripe for a broader dialogue to reappraise book donations to multilingual Africa, taking into account languages (linguistic "bibliodiversity"), the roles of national publishing and local writers, diverse community interests, evolving digital technologies, and other factors. The outcome could be some agreed upon set of guidelines for future book donations and foreign support for development of reading materials.

Linguistic imbalance in book donations to Africa

“When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue. You give him the possibility of a whole new life.” - Christopher Morley (American author and publisher)

“Sadly there are still those people who believe that any book is better than no book, so irrelevant and unusable materials from the West are shipped over, at no small cost.” - Sara Harrity MBE (former director, Book Aid International)

Giving books and other reading materials to those who do not otherwise have access to them is seen as a good thing, and it generally is, apart donation practices that have been widely criticized as "book dumping." However, there is also an inherent asymmetry in the kind of reading material generally going from the West to Africa, in that most of it is in Europhone languages, with little or none in the first languages of the children and communities who receive them. And this linguistic imbalance, aside from sometimes being a factor in unusability of materials (when people can't read the language in which they are written), certainly carries with it unintended messages about the lower value of first languages and local cultures relative to those of the donated materials.

At least some book donation programs in Africa have taken steps to address this imbalance by including materials in African languages, and among these, projects providing e-books and other digital texts have the easier road.

Book donations to Africa: What's involved?

A 2014 article based on a study in Madagascar ("What 'new' book donation practices can meet the needs of young African readers in libraries?") has a useful description of book donations to Africa:

"Donations can be books collected from libraries, schools, individuals or associations abroad. They can be new books, recuperated book pulps or second-hand books, mainly religious books, textbooks, literature, and some academic and professional books. It [sic] can also be books bought or published by international organisations and freely redistributed as part of their education programme.

"Donations can also be acquisitions of local books through purchases in a bookshop or the allocation of a budget to an associative structure towards acquiring books published locally."

In this mix, clearly the weight of foreign books in Europhone languages (in which most reading and instructional materials are published) is literally and figuratively much greater. For instance, the US non-profit Books for Africa has shipped over 30 million books in hundreds of containers to Africa. But a search of their site yields no mention of books in languages other than in English or French. Another American NGO, African Library Project, also focuses on English language materials but also asks for donations to help purchase "native language" books.

The British non-profit Book Aid International also seems to focus on English language materials to Africa, but also has included some locally produced books in African languages. Another British NGO, Books2Africa International has a helpful online chat feature and an searchable database of titles they ship to Africa, but I learned that the books they send are mostly English along with French, Spanish, German, and some Arabic (though they have future plans for African language titles, and support African authors).

South African children reading story books in African languages
(photo from Joburg.org.za via article in Afrcomum.com)

Acquisition of locally published materials, which would in most cases be the main way to include materials in African languages, is limited by the amount and type of publications produced in the recipient countries. This is another key dimension to consider in the larger picture of reading and instruction materials in Africa, which in turn is a function of the nexus of limitations in resources for publishing in Africa, first-language literacy, incentives for authors writing in African languages, etc.

Even when locally published materials are included among those distributed, another potential issue is comparisons of quality of foreign books from the West in Europhone languages with locally produced books in African languages. In many African countries, at least as far as I am aware, materials in African languages are often printed on cheaper paper with a rougher presentation. What sort of message does disparity in quality of local and international books give to recipients of book donations?

That said, there are quality books published in Africa, as well as by some specialized publishers outside of the continent (this is a topic I hope to return to).

Can digital books redress the linguistic imbalance?

Some initiatives to provide e-books and other digital reading materials to students in Africa have at least announced their intention to include books in the African languages of the recipients.

For example, the Library for All project, which recently announced an initiative in Rwanda with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Imbuto Foundation, has indicated it will include books in  Kinyarwanda, the first language of virtually all Rwandans. A post about the initiative elaborates on plans (apparently pending funding):

"We will add titles in English, French, Creole, Spanish and Lingala to our Haitian and Congolese Libraries, while also building our Rwandan collection of Kinyarwanda titles. Specifically, we will license an additional 200 books for the Library and translate 30 new books into local languages."

The Worldreader program boasts over 27,000 e-books in 43 languages, including the following African languages (links are to Wikipedia pages about the languages): "Adamawa" (meaning a variety of the Fula language spoken in an area centered on northern Cameroon), Afrikaans, Akan (they list the three old literary standards separately as Akuapem-Twi, Fante, and "Twi-Akan"); Amharic; Chichewa/Nyanja (they list the two names for this language separately); Dholuo; Ekegusii; Ewe; Gikuyu; Giriama (a Mijikenda language; also listed as Kigiriama in their list); Hausa; Igbo; Kamba; Kiembu; Kinyarwanda; Luganda; Luhyia; Lulogooli; Ndebele (not clear whether this is northern or southern Ndebele); Sesotho; Setswana; Shona; Swahili; Tetela; Xhosa; Yoruba; and Zulu. This is an impressive list, but I found no figures on how many titles for each language.

In addition to formal ebook projects, there are also some websites offering some reading material in African languages (other than news sites - another topic), such as that of the Ghanaian NGO, Kasahorow.

Altogether, these are significant beginnings at leveraging the potential of electronic digital technology to add African language titles among the books and other reading materials that African students and adults have access to.

Digital technology has always had this potential for languages that have a relatively short written tradition. The costs of bringing out e-books or other text content on the internet is a lot less, of course, than those incurred in printing, binding, storing and shipping physical books. Combined with the ability to access such reading material on mobile devices (which are widely used in Africa) and dedicated devices (provided by some programs), this offers the possibility to at least partially offset the linguistic imbalance discussed above. However, resources to create (or translate) e-books, favorable governmental and donor policies, and support for authors and translators are still needed.

See also the follow-on post, More on book donations to Africa.

Where has that word been all these years?

Recently had an interesting conversation in Philadelphia with Coleman Donaldson, who just completed his master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, writing his thesis on aspects of the history of N'Ko.* One anecdote he shared stuck with me - how a Manding speaker read a word written in N'Ko that brought tears to his eyes, as he'd last heard that from his mother when he was 15. There's a lot wrapped up in a reaction like that, but one question that has stayed with me is what happened to that word in all the years in between?

That is taking a certain liberty with the story, and it is certainly true that in any language and culture, someone may hear something infrequently used years apart and react to it strongly. But in a world where many unwritten and policy-neglected languages are contracting, the thought I had was that the spoken language alone may not keep the range of expression that it had been able to in earlier times. How many words are lost through lack of use in speech, lack of teaching, and not being written and read?

A humorous account of an exchange in Mali about the Bambara word for indigo-dyed cloth - galafini - and some tailors' ignorance of it is another case in point, but this is not an esoteric term or rare concept in the context it was discussed. I personally recall being surprised when in Niger to find a native Fulfulde speaker who knew only the locution neɗɗo mo yiyataa (person who can't see) for blind person, and not the word bumɗo in his language (derived from the root wum- etc.). I also remember when in Guinea in the mid-1980s hearing co-workers my age saying that their elders could hold a conversation in front of them in their common language (Pular) that they could not fully understand, due to terms and expressions used that they did not know.

So, what if the man in the anecdote (as I heard it) did not read that particular word in N'Ko and it had never been written down (except perhaps in an academic publication or two in shelved in university libraries in Europe and America)? And in that way, that that particular word and concept was lost to him, and became progressively forgotten in the speech community? Could it effectively be lost entirely?

Such loss of words - and hence range of expression - must have a cost to speakers of the affected languages and to their communities and societies at large. It arguably may not be too far from the Orwellian "Newspeak" in impact, though as a process not as a project.

How many efforts are there in Africa that successfully counter such language contraction, as N'Ko seems to be doing for Manding?

More on N'Ko

I have mentioned N'Ko on this blog previously, but here are three important aspects in addition to its being a script invented in 1949 by Souleymane Kanté in Guinea that are worth knowing:

1. N'Ko is also a kind of "koiné," or emerging standard, of the Manding languages of several countries in West Africa, which is expressed in a growing number of publications. Manding is a subgroup of Mande languages that include several highly mutually intelligible languages, notably: Several varieties of Maninka and Mandinka, which Ethnologue groups as the Mandingo "macrolanguage"; Bambara; and Jula.
2. Tone markings are integral to the system, not optional as in the Latin-based orthographies (where they are generally omitted except in dictionaries). This feature allows for distinctions not only between words with different tones, but also use of tones affecting meaning in phrases.
3. N'Ko is also a movement, involving people volunteering time to teach others and distribute materials. From the point of view of someone who has worked in and studied community development, this is remarkable. (I personally first learned of this aspect of N'Ko in Bamako in 2000 on meeting one activist, Sounkalo Dembele, who was at the time making trips to various villages near the city on his own time to teach N'Ko classes.)

______
* "Colonial and Islamic Language Policy and the Birth of N'Ko in Postwar French West Africa," 2015

US Census Bureau and African languages

The number of people speaking an African language at home in the United States* increased by 111% in the decade before the last census. Which African languages are most common among them? Looking at a map of most spoken African languages by state in the US from an article by Ben Blatt in Slate last year kind of answers that, but then raises more questions. To begin with, the names listed in the map include two languages (Amharic and Swahili), two branches of language families (Bantu and Cushitic), one language group (Nilotic), and a seemingly eclectic grouping of "Kru, Ibo, and Yoruba."

According to the Census Bureau site, it tabulates non-English speaking households by 328 languages or language categories (see the full list of codes). A list of African language categories excerpted from the Census Bureau's list raises more questions (the below includes headings and subheadings from the list; those categories marked with "◄" are listed in the Slate article as the "choices"; those highlighted in yellow are listed in one or more states on the map):

Source: "Tagalog in California, Cherokee in Arkansas: What language
does your state speak?" by Ben Blatt, Slate, 13 May 2014

INDO-EUROPEAN (601-678)
...
Germanic languages (607-618)
...
611    Afrikaans
...

ASIAN AND PACIFIC ISLAND LANGUAGES (684-695, 698-771)
...
Pacific Islands languages (730-776)
...
   West Indonesian (732-741)
...
738    Malagasy
...

OTHER LANGUAGES (679-683, 696-697, 777-999)
Semitic languages (777-780)
777    Arabic
...
780    Amharic ◄

Afro-Asiatic languages (781-783)
781    Berber ◄
782    Chadic ◄
783    Cushite ◄

Nilo-Saharan languages (784-789)
784    Sudanic ◄
785    Nilotic ◄
786    Nilo-hamitic ◄
787    Nubian ◄
788    Saharan ◄
789    Nilo-saharan
790    Khoisan ◄

Niger-Congo Languages (791-798)
791    Swahili ◄
792    Bantu ◄
793    Mande ◄
794    Fulani ◄
795    Gur ◄
796    Kru, Ibo, Yoruba ◄
797    Efik ◄
798    Mbum (and Related) ◄
799    African (not further specified)

Time for the Census Bureau to review its African language categories?

It is hard to know what to say about this list. It is obvious that some thought has gone into it (despite the puzzling combination of two major and distinct Volta-Niger languages - Yoruba and Igbo - with the linguistically and geographically distant Kru languages). And indeed the Bureau indicates it has based the categories "generally on Classification and Index of the World's Languages (Voegelin, C.F. and F.M., 1977)" and that it updates them "constantly using linguistic books and online resources." But without further  background it is hard to get away from the feeling that it is a bit random.

Another unknown is what the process is for determining who is counted under what category. The Census questions include an open-ended one for people who speak a language other than English at home: "What is this language?" Only the few languages listed directly on the list would be simple to tabulate - such as Amharic and Swahili. But if someone answers, say "Hausa," they would at some point (presumably not that of the enumerator) have their answer tabulated under "Chadic," since Hausa is in the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. If "Zulu," then "Bantu," and so on. The reason for tabulating under broader categories, as I understand it, has to do with confidentiality concerns (when there are few people speaking a language in an area).

However, if "Wolof" or "Akan" is the answer, there doesn't seem to be a category under Niger-Congo that applies, other than the catch-all 799. How many cases are there like this?

Another issue is that a couple of categories may not be current - Sudanic and Nilo-Hamitic.

Altogether, it would seem that an expert review and revision of the categories would be timely, as we are still five years from the next census. That would make the results more useful.
_________
* According to U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012, "Table 52. Population by Selected Ancestry Group and Region: 2009," a total of 777,553 people speak African languages (not specified) at home. This total does not include Arabic, which was counted separately at 845,396.

Wiktionary as a tool for African language learning

Wiktionary may sometimes be uneven as a reference, but how might it work despite gaps and errors - or even because of them - as a study aid for African languages? Here are some reflections on use of Wiktionary, the wiki dictionary in English, and Wiktionnaire, the French edition, in trying to keep my Fula (Fulfulde/Pulaar/Pular) and Bambara skills somewhat current, and possible lessons from this brief experience for teaching of these and other languages to second language learners.

For those not familiar with Wiktionary, it is the dictionary counterpart of the Wikipedia online editable encyclopedia, and also run by the Wikimedia Foundation. There are Wiktionaries written in 171 languages, according to the official count, of which 148 are "active," according to my count (the other 23 have been "closed" due to inactivity). In each language edition, there may be words and terms from any language, but defined in the edition's language. So, the English Wiktionary has entries in "over 1550 languages," but the navigation, definitions and categories are in English. Similarly, the French Wiktionnaire boasts terms in over 3800 languages, all defined in French.

Referring to a list of Wiktionaries by language families, one notes 25 African language editions, of which 16 are active (Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, Malagasy, Oromo, Sesotho, Somali, Swahili, Swati, Tigrinya, Tswana, Wolof, and Zulu), although some have only a few entries and translation of their user interfaces is not always complete. It is worth noting that the Malagasy edition is one of the three largest, due in part to an effort to automate adding of content (see here for background). Wiktionaries for nine African languages are closed or locked (Afar, Akan, Bambara, Kirundi, Shona, Tsonga, Twi, Xhosa, and Yoruba).

So as a first observation, a person studying an African language at whatever level may not find a Wiktionary edition in that language, and even if they do, they may not find much of use there. On the other hand they may find terms from the language they are studying defined in another language edition. For instance, the Hausa Wiktionary has only 62 entries, some of those empty or with English instead of Hausa definitions, but the English edition has over 400 Hausa terms - more but still not much (the French edition has 22). So, with other good materials for this language in print and online, why even bother with Wiktionary? The short answer is that due to its participatory nature, it can be a space for work that benefits learning - one's own and potentially that of others.

Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and African language study

 

I have long maintained that the participatory nature of Wikimedia projects in general offers potential uses in education. One approach is to have students "publish" or revise articles on Wikipedia that are relevant to class topics - this is actually an approach that some instructors have developed for use in university or even medical school classes..

In a short presentation at the African Language Teachers Association conference last April in Herndon, Virginia, I brought up a sub-theme of this idea: That intermediate and advanced students of African languages could stretch their language skills to write articles on various subjects in African language editions of Wikipedia - with guidance of their instructors - as part of their classwork. This suggestion is not to minimize the level of expression that could be used in these languages, but rather to combine giving students experience with helping fill gaps (often large gaps) in African language Wikipedias, where there is at least the potential for feedback on their contributions from native speakers.

Since I am not teaching, I have not been in a position to implement this idea, but considered how I might do this on the Fula and Bambara Wikipedias for my own review. However, working alone with rusty language skills in limited time periods, it has not been practical to use this approach.

Wiktionary on the other hand would offer opportunities to engage with the languages that interest me in shorter periods and on the level of vocabulary review. Unfortunately, as I indicated above, there are not currently any Wiktionaries in either Fula or Bambara, so I looked at what there was on these two languages in the English and French editions.

The idea of using Wiktionary in similar approaches is not new. An article in The Economist last year mentioned use of it for looking up words across languages, taking advantage of cross-wiki links at the bottom of the left hand column. Another article described use of the concept of "Wiktionary" with a different software for teaching biology terms within one language (English).

I chose to work on Fula words in the English Wiktionary, because there was a bit more there to work with than in the French Wiktionnaire, and since English is my first language, it is easier to deal with the wiki markup and template issues that I'd have to figure out along the way. And since there were already over 2400 Bambara terms in the French Wiktionnaire, I decided to take advantage of that resource by focusing on revising and categorizing. This made for two quite different experiences.

Structuring Fula entries on Wiktionary

I had actually done some edits to Fula and Bambara entries on the English Wiktionary earlier, but at the time I began to focus on Fula earlier this year, there were well less than 100 entries for that language. Since my experience with the language includes compilation of a Fulfulde dictionary, one of the first aspects I worked on was adding roots to the etymologies for several entries, then entries for roots, and a category for those root entries.

Entering terms on Wiktionary is not just a matter of adding a word and a meaning into a form. There is an expected structure, which is filled out in the wiki markup. In addition, certain templates may be used for parts of speech, plurals, and so on, and other markup to nest categories. For a complex language like Fula, with vocabulary based on roots and "infixes," some 26 noun classes, and initial consonant changes, elaborating that structure turns out to be the main issue.

Another structural issue was setting up templates for the plural forms of nouns. Fula plurals often take a form different from the singular, involving initial consonant changes in some cases, and different endings. The plurals also belong to one of their own classes (four of the 26 classes are for plurals), so that a good template will facilitate entering singular form, its determiner (which is also the class name), the plural, and its determiner/class.

Yet another issue is setting up a standard page for verbs. Fula verbs occur in three "voices" and are quite regular in conjugation, with no differences among the persons, except for initial consonant changes for some consonants in plural form. But setting up the tables for conjugations in Wiktionary seems to be somewhat involved.

A further complication is the fact that Fula has several varieties (some consider them dialects; Ethnologue classes them as separate languages), and some words or forms may differ in one or more varieties. Setting up a way of indicating this, and listing references, was not difficult.

In sum, much of my limited effort on Fula entries of Wiktionary has been devoted to necessary foundational work on the structure of articles, and slowed by the need to learn some of the more advanced wiki markup. So as a tool for review, it has so far been of limited use so far, and I unfortunately could not recommend it at this point for learners of Fula.

Random pages in Bambara on Wiktionnaire

For Bambara, I was happy to find that there was significant content already on the Wiktionnaire. This has made it an ideal site for review, especially taking advantage of the "Page au hasard par langue" (random page by language) click-on in the sidebar. Using this feature is like flashcards, though with the definitions right there. (I actually wonder if one could not set up a special flashcard mode for random pages, to facilitate use of Wiktionaries for vocabulary learning and review.)

Whether via the random page or other look-up, I've reviewed and often modified entries, consulting online and print references as necessary. I've also worked with the categories, which once set up is a great way to review semantically related terms. So for instance if I come across a word related to agriculture, and add it to that category (Catégorie:Lexique en bambara de l’agriculture), I can immediately open the category and see other terms. For category organization, it has been easy to consult that used for French.

Bambara is not complicated in the same way as Fula (simpler morphology, no classes, no conjugation), so entries are easy to set up and modify. It has been possible to accomplish a lot in short sittings or even on a mobile device. As such, I would recommend it for use by learners of Bambara. Advanced students may be able to expand, correct, or create entries - basic knowledge of wiki markup would suffice.

Wiktionary in the African language class

Any plan to use Wiktionary as an activity in classes would have to be preceded by evaluation of the language material and whether the structure (categories, templates for special features) would facilitate students actually getting something out of the effort. I believe my personal experience shows some of the challenges and potential of using Wiktionaries for learning and review of vocabulary.

What of other online dictionaries? Could contributing to Kamusi for example also be of use to learners? One advantage is that it has is no wiki markup to learn (see this comparison for other differences). I hope to come back to this in a future posting.

Unicode and the architecture of ICT

Latin omega, used in Kulango, and now
included in Unicode's latest version.

Unicode released its 8th version earlier this month, so maybe it's a good time to take stock of what the effort to encode all the world's scripts in a single system - which includes the Universal Coded Character Set (ISO/IEC 10646) - has meant for African languages.

The attention with a coding system for characters is naturally on the characters and scripts they are part of, and among the changes in Unicode 8 are some Latin-based characters used to write the Kulango language of Ivory Coast and the endangered Ik language of Uganda. These have been added to Unicode's "Latin Extended-D" block. (The Unicode standard also includes technical specifications for handling text.)

In past years there have been similar small additions to Unicode, as well as major additions of whole African scripts like Osmanya (2003), Tifinagh (2005), N'Ko (2006), Vai (2008), Bamum (2009), Mende Kikakui (2014), and Bassa Vah (2014).

The Ethiopic/Ge'ez script - used for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, such as Amharic and Tigrinya - was first added in 1999, before the Unicode standard was widely adopted. At the time, different scripts used different coding systems, hindering use of languages with complex or non-Latin scripts, and posing particular problems for anyone wanting to combine scripts in a document or on a webpage.

Unicode as an enabling architecture

With that I wanted to quote from an unsigned blog posting entitled "What are we missing out on" (9 Dec. 2014) that was part of an American University course on international communication, as I think it offers an important perspective on why encoding scripts in Unicode is important:

"Tonight’s presentation on Ethiopic language and its inclusion in Unicode presented an important element about the global digital divide because it asks the question: how can, even with access to information communication technologies and internet access, someone utilize technology if it is not available in their native language? In short, they can’t. This is an important element to consider in regard to technology and the reality of, to borrow from Laura DeNardis’s description, its architecture. As the group described in their literature related to their case study, the architecture of something has the power to include and exclude. The analogy we have used in class in class is that of bridges that are built low enough to prevent busses driving under them.

"In the case of Ethiopia, technology was created in a way that excludes the nation’s 90 languages because American companies created the technology in English with a western cultural perspective. Further, their commercial interests drive their actions, and there is no financial incentive to include languages in which there is no commercial demand. Therefore, not only are these groups of people excluded from the benefits of technology, we are also denied the benefit of their knowledge. As the group noted, we “feel” like we are so much more connected, but cannot assume that the majority of the information is in English and unless everyone is able to put information in the digital realm, we are missing out. After this presentation, I cannot help but to believe that we are indeed missing out. Tonight we discussed Ethiopic, but what other languages are we missing out on?"

The "architecture" of information and communication technology (ICT) in this case starts with the internationalization piece ("i18n"), which is addressed in part by Unicode. It would also include availability or not of localized ("L10n") software, which is especially important for major languages, and content. Localization is also conditioned by factors such as education, policy (of national governments as well as of development organizations), and, as alluded to above, economics. As such, once one moves beyond the enabling architecture, the interplay of factors looks more like an "ecology."

Unicode, by adding scripts and amending characters, makes the written form of African languages theoretically accessible on modern computing devices and across the internet. That's huge progress beyond where things were a decade and a half ago, when various 8-bit encodings dominated (at which time I noted some issues of lack of support for African language scripts were stuck at practically the same place they had been ten years before!). But it's still only part of the process of fully addressing the linguistic dimensions of the digital divide in Africa. Until that happens, we all will be "missing out" in different ways.