Does spelling matter in Malinke ebola materials?

An earlier post looked at problems with non-standard Bambara in an ebola poster. Here I'll look at similar issues with a poster in Malinke (Maninka), a closely related Manding language spoken mainly in upper Guinea, and also southwestern Mali.

The Malinke poster at right is a translation of a CDC poster on ebola symptoms, one of various different materials translated into a number of languages by Translators Without Borders. It appears to be written in the old, pre-1985 Guinean orthography with some French spellings.

After independence, Guinea adopted a common alphabet to transcribe all its languages, using the keys available on the typewriters of the day. Many people learned to read and write with these spelling rules (I personally encountered people and Pular materials using this system, and used it myself, in the mid-1980s), and to some degree their use persists.

When the government transitioned after the death of longtime president Sékou Touré in the mid-1980s, Guinea adopted an orthography harmonized with that of the other countries of the region. For Malinké that meant for example the following changes: dy → j ; è → ɛ ; nh → ŋ ; ny → ɲ ; ö → ɔ ; and ty → c (the latter sound is represented by "ch" in English and variously by "tch" or "thi" in French).

The French writing influences in the poster are dj instead of dy or j, and ou instead of u. The accent aigu on é in the poster is probably gratuitous (the letter e in the old and new Malinke orthographies indicates the same sound) - unless a tone was intended by the writer (Manding languages are tonal, but usually tones are not marked in writing them in Latin-based script).

To see what the current orthography would look like, a simple set of substitutions would be straightforward, however I'm not sure on some word divisions (what knowledge I have of Bambara is an imperfect guide for that task).

The product as is, is presumably readable - and read-aloud-able - by many in Guinea since it is based on the older transcription. I don't have information on how widespread use of the new orthography is, but that is a question that should be considered.

And to the extent it is used consistently, conversion to the new system would be easy - which would facilitate use with Malinké populations outside of Guinea, or comparison with materials in other Manding languages (for terminology development etc.). Malike is also written in the N'Ko script (which has been the subject of some previous posts) - transcription between that and the Latin-based systems for communication or for comparison  is not as simple.

So in answer to whether spelling matters - yes, especially if the material is to be re-used or reviewed in comparison to other materials in Malinke or in other Manding languages. The fact that there has been a change in orthographies adds a complication, but one easily dealt with if each system is used consistently. And as indicated above, the matter of relative knowledge and use of the old and new orthographies for Malinke - and other languages of Guinea - is a question.

Addendum (2 January 2015)

I am told that the ebola poster above has numerous mistakes. This again points to the need to review materials in African languages (per "2Ds & 4Rs"), preferably before publication.

See also follow up posting: "More on written Malinke."

Two ebola info sites - almost no African language content

Several recent posts on this blog have highlighted various efforts to provide information about ebola in diverse African languages. Here I'd like to mention two important efforts to share material for communication on ebola, which include almost no information (yet) in African languages: the Ebola Communication Network (ECN), funded by USAID and run by the Center for Communications Programs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and "Ebola and C4D," a page on UNICEF's Communication for Development (C4D) website.

The purpose here is not to criticize but to help show the current language gap in messaging.

The ECN site has, according to the dropdown for "languages" on the search page, materials in the following languages (with number of items): English (133); French (17); Portuguese (2); Spanish (2); Krio (1); Pidgin (1); and Symbolic (1). Not counted in the total are the CDC's radio spots 11 African languages accessible via a link. To be fair, the ECN was only launched last week, and this is a significant collection as far as it goes.

The ECN site allows subscribed users to upload material, which would allow materials in more languages to be made available. Two questions for ECN are:

1. How will review be handled for a wider range of languages?
2. Will there be any proactive effort to develop the collection of materials in African languages in affected areas that might otherwise be overlooked?

The "Ebola and C4D" page, apparently launched in August, also has a significant collection. From perusal of the lists (organized under tabs for Fact Sheets, Social Mobilization, Planning Documents, and Other Tools & Resources), it appears that all linked materials are in English, French, or Portuguese, with one item in Khmer and one poster from Uganda in "Bantu" (which is a language family - may be Runyoro or Luganda - seeking to identify).

Here too, a means to submit materials is provided, so the above 2 questions may also be asked of UNICEF.

An effort should be made to upload existing material in African languages (with correct identification), as a necessary first step in helping to expand these collections.

On the Atlantic Council's "Combating the Ebola Outbreak"

Last Thursday, 2 October 2014, the Atlantic Council's Africa Center hosted an expert panel discussion on "Combating the Ebola Outbreak" in Washington, DC. Chaired by the Center's director, Dr. J. Peter Pham, the panel dealt with current efforts to address the crisis and longer-term considerations. (The full presentation, including presentations and Q&A, can be heard via a video link.)

From a review of the audio of the discussion, I'd like to highlight three areas where the issue of language was implicitly or, in one case, explicitly mentioned. Keep in mind that West Africa, including the three countries currently experiencing the epidemic - Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea - is a multilingual region, so this is a very practical issue.

The first area was that of public education, which necessarily involves choice of language(s) for communication and development of materials. Panelist Donald Shriber, Deputy Director for Policy and Communication of the CDC's Center for Global Health referred in his comments to "health promotion and health communication, which means getting culturally appropriate messages out to people through trusted messengers." Language might be included under "culturally appropriate messages," and accuracy of messaging whatever the language would be implied - and both are arguably as important as cultural appropriateness (language and culture are dual considerations in localization, for instance) and trusted messengers (who one would hope would be able to convey clear, accurate, and consistent information in all languages used). As mentioned on a previous posting on this blog, the CDC has produced radio spots about ebola in 11 African languages of the region.

The issue of public education came up again in the Q&A period in comments by former ambassador Robert Gribbin, who also served a short term recently as chargé d'affaires in the US Embassy in Sierra Leone. Amb. Gribbin mentioned that "There's been a massive education effort on the part of the [Sierra Leone] government, with its international partners to teach people about ebola, about what to do. ... And people are really quite aware I think of the immediacy of this ..." A natural question would be how the various languages of the country were used - as presumably they must have been in a "massive" public education push. It is worth remembering in this context that the US Embassy/Freetown has five Sierra Leonean language translations of an English language notice about ebola available on its website.

Second, there were references to training of health workers, notably by Anne Witkowsky, US Department of Defense's (DoD) Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability and Humanitarian Affairs.Ms. Witkowsky mentioned the DoD's plan to train up to 500 health workers per week. Here too, language becomes a big issue, both for training health workers, who may not have high levels in English or French, and who in any event, will have to communicate complex messages to patients and communities in their first languages. Will there be any training in or about messaging in various key languages where the health workers will ultimately work, or will it be assumed that the workers fully understand and can accurately interpret/translate on their own? (The latter is often the case in agricultural extension and development work in Africa - see the discussion and links here.)

And third, the issue of communication about complex topics came up in remarks by Col. Nelson Michael (M.D., Ph.D.), Director of the US Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Referencing a UN publication on guidelines for good participatory practice,* he discussed the importance of community engagement in eventual vaccine trials, meaning that "the community is involved during the entire lifecycle of the project, from sitting on study teams to actually thinking about the designs of these studies to make sure that when volunteers are given informed consent that they have tests of understanding that their own native language is used so there's a contact and transparency between research indivduals and between those volunteers." Language here is explicit in the case of informed consent, but would also be important in the other participatory aspects.

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* I believe the publication is: "Guidelines on Citizens’ Engagement for Development Management and Public Governance," Development Management Branch, Division for Public Administration and Development Management, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, March 2011

NB- Various minor additions and corrections after posting. Ambassador Gribbin's name corrected, with apologies for the error and thanks to Dr. Pham  (7 Oct 2014).

Ebola and health information in African languages

The alarming ebola epidemic in West Africa - primarily Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, with a few cases in Nigeria - is now into its sixth month and still expanding. There are fears that ebola may explode into urban areas of the region. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) president Dr. Joanne Liu was recently quoted as saying that "the world is losing the battle to contain it," and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden was quoted as saying the epidemic is "spiraling out of control."

International and national responses to ebola in West Africa have naturally focused on measures to control its spread and treat patients (as much as can be done, given the high mortality rate and lack of available remedies). Public health education is recognized as an essential element in controlling the epidemic and helping the region's population to understand what the real risks and treatments are.

Ebola education in a multilingual region

West Africa is of course a multilingual region, and any effort to effectively communicate and educate in such an emergency must take account of its multilingual nature, with many languages, limited knowledge of the various countries' official languages (English, French, or Portuguese), and limited literacy in first languages and regional lingua francas. No one language can be relied on to get ebola information and advice to all the people who need it. This means finding ways to translate messages, assure quality in such translations, and provide them in appropriate mixes of text (for posters, scripts) and audio (for national and local radio). It also has longer term implications that I will come back to in a later post on this blog.

This linguistic dimension to public education on ebola in West Africa is recognized on various levels. The CDC for instance had radio spots produced in several languages of the affected area: Pular, several languages of the affected area. (links on language names go to Wikipedia descriptions). A Wellesley College prof, Dr. Donna A. Patterson, suggested that public campaigns should be available in "local languages" in an article entitled "Better Public Education Programs Could Help Stop the Spread of Ebola." And a news item on Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) mentioned translation on on the village level in the west of that country (although without the names of target languages).

The non-governmental organization (NGO), Translators Without Borders (TWB) has coordinated translation of material into Hausa (see image at right). Its collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters might be a good model for international and national collaboration on ebola messaging in African languages.

However, attention to the importance of African first languages and lingua francas for public health education is apparently not a given. In an interview with BBC's World Update, TWB president Lori Thicke pointed out that health NGOs working in rural areas aren't always aware of language issues. Without anyone minimizing their efforts, this is not surprising from what I know of development projects and extension organizations, which tend to deal with "local languages" on an ad hoc basis with interpretation by staff or local people when the need arises (see blog posts on this in context of agriculture in 2007 and 2008).

But it's not just a problem of NGOs in the field. In an interview on the US public television service, PBS, MSF's Dr. Liu referred to the need for clear messaging on ebola issues, but did not mention the challenges of quality translation of such messaging. She likely is well aware of that, but the fact it did not arise in either her statements or the interviewer's (Jeffrey Brown) questions is telling. Voice of America, in an August 20 article about media in West Africa and public education on ebola did not mention anything about languages or translation.

This is not to say that the issue of translation of information on ebola is necessarily easy, but that it is an issue needing attention, especially at higher levels. The kind of volunteer-based translation that TWB facilitates is impressive, as is the less visible daily work on local levels by officials such as discussed in the Côte d'Ivoire item cited above, but it certainly would help to have more resources to support translation and wider coordination of translation efforts (the latter in part because many languages cross borders, meaning potential duplication of effort and differences in wording).

Building resources for short- and long-term

Another important need for dealing with ebola in the immediate future and in years to come, as well as for improving individual and public health in general, is to collect, record, and compile medical and health education material in African languages. Aside from providing reference material for the future, it also should help avoid having to start translations from scratch each time a public health emergency arises.

Fortunately there is a volunteer effort to achieve this sort of outcome: the Wikipedia-based Medical Translation Project, which collaborates with TWB. An example of their work is an article on ebola in Hausa entitled "Ƙwayoyin cuta na Ebola" on the Hausa-language edition of Wikipedia

I plan to post more on this project later.