Fear, loathing, and murder in Womey, Guinea

Reports of the brutal murder of most of an ebola outreach team by villagers in Womey, Guinea already has spawned reactions on social media referring to "ignorance" and "low education levels." Nothing excuses such killing, but before concluding that the causes are a local population that is simply unenlightened and/or given to violence, more facts should be sought.

What is known of the incident from current reports (see 18 Sept. reports in GuineeNews, ReliefWeb, Washington Post) is that a team consisting mainly of local government officials and local media went to Womey on Tuesday 16 Sept. as part of an ebola education campaign. They were attacked by a mob with stones and clubs, and 8 of them killed as they fled into the bush (9 people were listed as missing in this report, and apparently all but the son of the Sous-préfet of Womey [head of the "sub-prefecture" administrative area] were confirmed dead; the regional governor, Lancèi Condé, and a female journalist also escaped alive).

Womey is in the region where ebola in West Africa first occurred about nine months ago. This virus had never before been seen in the area, and apparently many people suspected it had been brought by outsiders. An incident in N'Zerekore city (not far from Womey) in late August certainly fed the anxiety level when workers were sent into a market to spray disinfectant without prior announcement - some people reportedly feared the spray was intended to spread the virus. Riots ensued.

It is worth recalling that when reading a report that people in Womey feared the ebola campaign team had come to kill them.

It is also worth considering this evaluation from Cheikh Ibrahima Niang, a Senegalese anthropologist who has worked in some ebola-affected areas of the region:

"Quand les populations disent qu’Ebola n’existe pas, elles se rebellent contre quelque chose. Elles sont dans des situations où on ne les a pas consultées et ont l’impression qu’on les traite avec beaucoup de paternalisme." [When people say that ebola doesn't exist, they are rebelling against something. They are in situations where they haven't been consulted and have the impression they are being treated with lots of paternalism.]

So it seems that some of the issues involved in the events in Womey are: fear; anger; sharply different perceptions of authorities on the one hand and local residents on the other; and communication or lack of it.

With my interest in language in development communication - and in public education on ebola - I've also wondered what the linguistic dimensions may have been. The region of Guinea in which this took place is very multilingual (much more than the other three traditional regions of the country, in each of which one African language dominates). In addition to 5 languages (of Guinea's 8 national languages) - Guerzé/Kpelle, Kissi, Toma, Kono, and Lola - there is also the official language of French. And some of the higher level government and health officials come from other regions and not speak any of the local languages. That adds to complexity of communication: Were communications in locally dominant languages lacking in quality or frequency? Did they counter the narrative about ebola being introduced and how? How strong were the local language skills of the outreach team? (On the latter question, the presence of local radio journalists on the team presumably means there were people fluent in the local language(s).)

An article giving Gov. Condé's account of the incident in Womey hints at language as a factor, but in an unexpected way. Apparently the delegation had visited other localities without incident, and the meeting in Womey began in a relaxed atmosphere. The governor's opening talk (presumably in French; there was no mention of that or interpretation) went well. According to the account, however, when another team member stepped up to talk in the local language (which was not specified), people started throwing rocks, and chaos ensued. This could be interpreted in various ways, of course. It would be horrible to think that a misstatement by the second speaker was so off or misinterpreted that it triggered the reaction. On the other hand, it is no more comforting to see this as premeditated. So it will be informative to have any further information as it becomes available.

In any event, one must come back to the nexus of issues around fear, anger, perceptions, and communication. Of these, communication is a key to mitigating other issues, and language (choice of languages, quality of translations, etc.) is inseparable from the communication process.

On ebola, in Yoruba

In a previous post, I included a link to a YouTube video on ebola in the Yoruba language. For reference, other videos on the subject in Yoruba and other Nigerian languages are accessible via @LensOnEbola on Twitter.  In this post, however, I'd like to highlight some information in written Standard Yoruba, since that can be read, revised, remixed, and reused in various ways.

First, a quick intro to written Yoruba. The Latin-based script currently used for Yoruba in Nigeria - most of the Yorubaphone population lives in the southwestern part of that country - was developed beginning in the early 19th century (Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a remarkable figure in Nigerian history, was associated with that process). This orthography normally uses some characters with either small vertical lines or dots under (the latter sometimes referred to in English as "subdots") to represent the "open e" and "open o" vowel sounds and the "sh" sound (ẹ, ọ, ṣ). Since it is a tonal language, tone marks help disambiguate meaning, though are sometimes omitted. The Yoruba alphabet is considered a "complex Latin" script (Vietnamese is also in this category).

Yoruba varieties in Benin are written with characters from the African reference alphabet. (Latin-based orthographies for African languages are generally fixed on the national level, and in many other cases have common characters and rules across borders).

The following is a sampling of information mentioning ebola, in written Yoruba, sourced via quick online searches (NB- I do not speak the language so am trusting that the material so accessed is relevant and appropriate):

• The poster at right, from the Nigerian government Ebola Virus Information Unit website
• The Alákọ̀wé blog has a post entitled simply "Ebola" (18 Aug. 2014; this blog is a nice presentation of Yoruba text, although the chosen font fails on some "subdot" letters; also audio). 
• Various posts on Olayemi Oniroyin's blog (with some English)
• The Yoruba Clinic Blog has a post entitled "Arun ebola farahan ni Kaduna ni igba akoko!" (2 Sep. 2014)
• Articles (PDF format) on the Alaroye Youruba-language news site, for example:
• "Arun Ebola: E gbe igbese kia, e yee seleri asan faw on araalu — PDP"
• "Ara eni ti arun Ebola ba da dubule nikan leeyan ti le ko o — Dokita Jide Idris"
• The Yoruba edition of Wikipedia (one of the largest editions in African languages) has a translated article about ebola entitled "Àrùn kòkòrò àìlèfojúrí afàìsàn Ebola." This is likely a result of the WikiProjectMed efforts.
• A graphic, apparently from the Lagos State Ministry of Health with text that may be Yoruba.

This is just a sampling for one specific major language of West Africa. Any more complete and useful list of material on ebola in Yoruba would require a more systematic effort, as well as of course people literate in the language  Such collection of material in languages of the region could be used to develop information banks on ebola (and eventually other health issues) in those languages, which could be tapped for a range of public information, health worker training, and general education uses.

Some ebola message translations from Freetown

The US Embassy, Freetown, Sierra Leone website has 6 language versions of an ebola message (including English "Unite to Fight Ebola!"). I'm posting available image files of those documents from a Facebook posting by Zee Tunkara Clarkson (31 July 2014) with full text and links to the original PDFs of the documents. The object here is to promote dissemination of this material as well as to facilitate review by experts in the 5 languages of translation:  Krio, Mende, Kono, Susu, and Limba. (Three of these are cross-border languages, Mende also being spoken in Liberia, and Susu and Limba in Guinea.) Such material may possibly be useful in crafting other educational material in these languages.

The text below was copied as-is from the documents pictured and linked. I do not speak any of these languages, so cannot comment on the translations, however there appear to be some inconsistencies in spellings (e.g., ibola and ebola in Krio). Feedback invited.

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Krio: "Le Wi Jɔyn An Fɔ Fɛt Ibola!"

Ibola na sik we de kil kwik kwik wan ɛn na motalman ɛnimi; as i kin mek pɔsin in bɔdi de wam pas mak ɛn pul blɔd ɔlsay we gɛt ol na i bɔdi, so te i day.

Dis mɛsej de fɔ ɛp yu, yu fambul dɛm ɛn yu neba dɛm fɔ fɛt ibola tranga wan.

Salon pipul dɛm we bin gɛt ibola bɔt nɔr day bin liv bikɔs dɛn ebul go ɔ spitul kwik wan. Fɔ tap dis sik, na fɔ wok tranga wan wit di wɛlbɔdi pipul dɛm ɛn kɔl 117 ɛnitɛm yu si pɔsin we yu fil se gɛt dis sik. Yu nɔ go pe ɛnitin.

• Fɔ naw, na pɔsin nɔ mɔ kin sheb dis sik. U kin gɛt dis sik we u jam bɔdi wit pɔsin we gɛt di sik bad bad wan ɔ sɛf kin gɛt am pan ɛni wata we de kɔmɔt na di pɔsin in bɔdi.
• Pɔsin kin gɛt dis sik fɔ 2-21 de ɛn i nɔ go sho pan am, fɔ bɔku pipul, i go tek 5-8 de bifo i go sik. Durin dis tɛm, i nɔ go gi u pas di sik dɔn bad ɔf. If u de waka, u nɔ go kech di sik frɔm pɔsin we gɛt am.
• Na we di posin don sik tranga wan na da tem de di sik go sho insef fos na di blod den na di wɛt, vɔmit, tɔylɛt, bɔbi wata spam ɛn swɛt.
• Dis sik kin sheb kwi k wan frɔm pɔsin to pɔsin, mɔ to fambul we de mɛn di sik man or di wɛlbɔd i pipul dɛm we de tek care of dɛn sik man ya.
• Duya, nɔ tɔch pɔsin we de day. Dedebɔdi kin gi u ebola so duya lɛf di dedebodi to di wɛlbɔdi pipul dɛm we dɛn dɔn tren fɔ andul dis sik ya.
• Dis virus we wi kin kɔl tumbu, de day kwik wan if yu yuz sop, blich en san wi klos dɛm. Sɛf, yu we gɛt da machine for was klos kin yuz am for kil dis tumbu. Lɛ wi lan fɔ was wi an wit sop ɔl tɛm.
• Yu nɔ go gɛt ebola if yu de ple wit mɔni, bay bred ɔ swim na wata. Nɔ it bush bif we nɔ kuk dɔn as dɛn bat we lɛk it fruit na dɛm wi biliv se de sheb dis ebola ɛn mɔnki, babu ɛn dɛn bush animal dɛn sɛf kin gɛt am.
• As wi de tɔk so naw, wi nɔ gɛt no wɛlbɔdi risin fɔ tap plen nɔ fɔ flay, pipul fɔ travul, fɔ lɔk bɔda ɔ lɔk ɛmbasi, skul ɔ biznɛs dɛm.
• Di american ɛmbasi opin fɔ biznɛs lɛk ɔltɛm.

All salon man kin ɛp fɛt ibola. Di fɔs tin na fɔ no bɔt di sik so yu go protɛkt yusɛf, yu fambul dɛm ɛn u neba dɛm. Di nɛks tin na fɔ tɛl ɔda pipul dɛm aw dɛn sɛf kin ɛp tap ibola.

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Mende: "Mu nGoyila GbE Ebola Lapii Maa!"

Higbeh nyamu yila mia wa mu luehun ta toli ar Ebola, Taa nungaa waama wa, egbiya na ma, numgaa sia tia loo baoma. Mu yenge a goyila a hale bla sia ko mu higbe gi gbia ndohun. Nu gbi lee higbei gi ma ngoongo nu e pae hileblasia ti ma ngo flo.

• Ba hingbei gi majoolo ar nu mui na hingbei gii gi gu gahun saniko nu mu hingbe ngur gi vondei.
• Higbei gi ar yea nu gahun gi fele or gi nu fele gboyongo mahu yila.
• Kelee ebola higbei eyeh numa tamia ar geh nu ngamii hun, golii, balii, fundei, ndolay yei, nyini yei.
• Higbei gi ar lae lo nu gama ar bi bondasia or bi ma blasia ta bi mahun gbe.
• Ba jaa ar numui na ebola higbei gi ma or numui na ebola higbei gi wa ga keley hiebla sia.
• Ma hingbei gi waa flo, e na Mua mu yea ya wama fo ar bawei, klawa kemikasia, fulii ke klawa ngoli bee.
• Ba ya ndogbo huen me, Huen na e yii panda ba mE, mehen na ndevei mia ba meh clo beh va.
• Bee Ebola hingbei gi maango gi ba lolii ar kopoi, gi ba ye haka yea ya ma sabonda braedii yae ya mi ke gibon ba ye moi ma njei la.
• Temi na e ya foi lei ko scuisia, embassisia, baluisia, businessisia ti gbo.
• America Embassy wubla bla sia ti officii lao ngo temi gbi lee, ti lin hinda gbi.

Mu kpelei ndoe gi hu mo a muye ma gu lo mu lapii a hin gbei wai gi ta toli Ebola ke hinda, halei ma pae ta mia a hingbei wai gi ma ngo lei, na mia a pae hingbei gi e mu hue ke mu bondaasia bee. Hinda yekei ma pa e a ndelaa nungaa yekei sa bee ma.

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Kono: "Mor Buteneh Che Kweyedondoryor Ebola ban Kwaya!"

Ebola mu mor far gbadi ana Eh wan gbeh mor teh. Sakana kweh chea ehbatina mor ma benkwana, butuneh che kwaya gbandicha Mor bamoi min bow wnda gbadi ch, an fuawa ta bwe cheneh da. Ni moah wyiche bwetina, gbadicha eh fua wan banda moah chenechor. Mor gbadi chewakwa oryean bwetina timaor tima a wakwa or sonda mor bema Moi bwetin chawan gbabye chea ma 117.

• Sanjeh chor gbandi che ka modonbwe artina ata modominday tina. Asin moi ya mason gbandi moi chedehchedel ama, Gbadi chiar arbebe tar or chiah or choir chiar.
• Gbandiche emawan moi ma eyoson aca tay fea ma ata tay bifea kuma dondoiior. Che Moi kuso far gbandi chea sonda tay du the ar ta tay saiy ar the.
• Gbandichea ebain gbadimoi dor. Inima weh gbaindachea ai bay mor dominda ma kadache Gbandiche ta gbaineh ma gbeh formoi ana hata or tar. Siache, susuei bor kaka, tarr. Asin, gbandi samoinfan bay amason kaka.
• Iy ma tu suah, ambeh Gbandiche bay wan. Ni ya moi fah, ar to bweti mbowah ar ton kwaya Fineh mimbi gbandiche bay matuni somboiah, tay or kena gbandineh So mormor bo ark o tima or tima Yi tuah kapwe ah iea.
• Gbandi eba moima Bbede orh or iea dah or kwa.
• Yi ma feah or swi mima tama ni chendeh down,cheminah, feahor swim be knongbwoi down fan  Tosa na min to kenechior.
• A beebeh kwa niooh nu Chebeor, momo ma foni mbeh fia dendeh ma na or ta. Momo ma bodar na ton ni Momo ma foni moie ma ta tache or.
• Pu chenneh na wichetiya na kain famu Suku mbeh na kain famu.
• Abbebeh Amerlica na cheneh a kain far mu sajameh.

Morgbeh mormor boo art un Butuneh che kwa ya gbandi char. Mbe gbandi ch makwaor. Yi pen son mbe ya for to yi moin ja.

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Susu: "Muhu Berein Halam Fekayrinma Ebola Gayrayfey!"

Ebola furay far furay nara. Gi furay etan, nu eha me fiyea, nu edoh ho boray. Leonenay, na habara gi furay sortoh aye serri na tongo e fa-yalan. Alan oh nu menga sie ha woo kayrain sortoh. A fala mengeh sie beh furay ma naha mu wama serry tongo fay. Hellity (117)

• Hallow ar to forloh he key, aryerima mehri nu mehri nama. Egi furay sortoh manneh e na di eboray-rah.
• Gi foo-ray lo manneh merima keyfree nu/mahoyennu kayrain. He suelee he solowma saha afa foorah
• Foryei foo-rah afa wuleema sortoh, nu kwolee, nu bouwin woesi
• Mehkeyray nehray, furayma dandama etangi furay masatorma
• Enagha deen furayma fore nehray arfay colon
• Gi furay, safwin, sogay. Temberin e bela he marah
• E mu Ebola sortorma kobiri, tami yeama safay. E nah ha don say don naha mu yengri afa yerah. Keycoin nafa mordonma
• Gi moment e nu norma baloyin dan dae aye mu kerabalama ecole nu wholiday, mu balama
• US Embassy neh tanabay tembelay

Leonenay nor manneh Ebola keriday. As sengeh, he tan, nu ehan meri aye nu e dohboray, nu gbetaye e fala berinbeh.

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Limba: "Mi Bointada Ba Dakila E thuna Key Dorma Ebola!"

Ebola, e Thuna na key kori limba-meti. Key kotheh mi bah u thunkoh. Kayla bamba ba she ba me, hunpo hoe kentu, nu bay kentu ba mi hu kothor ba dakila Ebola. Hu gbon hoe ka Salone bin dae punkay kuta tali ban a gbokolimbi yakoh. Ma boinadi e ba pilin bay, bay bindeh masaay tabay ba mi na massita ba dakila e thuna ki. Yonkina hu gbon hoe ka ba pillim bay ka e kalahin 117 bana e kuta wah way sim ay kayhin ba e thorna key ka Ebola.

• E thornah key seh key, key thala dain ka limba metti. E koh kin kutu na e labay kay wah metti wo tukeh, ni mu boti mu ka wah wo belun e thorna ki.
• E san wu kothoh ba doma na wah bilun e thorna kin-kin ba ma loko koyi-kala ni manthay. Ma loko ma nundi, kin koh tukinokoh ka ma loko masoyi e ma loko maso-matati. Kin thornaki, kin sa thalanda yokoh wah wo thorna ma ka-here. Ba nah ndo punku thariokoh,e sakin thalintianda ka wah wu fenah.
• Ba pilin bay e bay kenah-meh bay nayan kuta e thornah kin-kin.
• Ba labay kay wah way tukeh. Ba pilin bay na doru wu labay kay wah way ni Ebola, ni ba mankia wah wu koro e Ebola.
• E thunaki, kin koh kora e sineh, mu maythna, e kan woo. Mi thania ba loka tha lunkoh tha kantu timu-timu.
• E sa kutu e thuna kinkin kama thalintanda kopiri, ka bola mu theri, ni ba gban thiokoh ka mandi. Ba thor mu thor mu poniyorta ma lohun - nor na bara.
• Ka ma loko mama, mi ka eh e bali ba yikina thalan-boti ba sir, ba lunka beluin ni nga ken ken ka thurea-mina, ba yikina ba thariokoh, ba gboni bay, karani ba, ni Embassinabay.
• Hu gbon hoe ka U.S. Embassy hoe petheh tuma-tuma nanda thurn hun.

Mi formah kin ba thiah ma massay ba daykila Ebola. Yi kin Lanka kothor ba pulunokoh, ba bia bay kenda, ni metti da. Wu mankeh wu, mi kin bah wu tapay bia bi fenah ken na bin kothoh ba e thonaki.

More on ebola and health information in African languages

Quick follow-up on last week's post on Ebola and health information in African languages, to share some more information about initiatives on ebola education and reporting in African languages.

Following tweets on the previous post, there was additional information via Twitter on some videos in Nigerian languages:

@babatabita Check @LensOnEbola for more #Ebola videos from #Nigeria, in #Yoruba, #Pidgin and #English. @donosborn #NgHlth
— Nigeria Health Watch (@nighealthwatch) September 5, 2014

The Nigerian language videos (YouTube) that I'm aware of so far are as follows (would appreciate more links from those who have them):

• In Yoruba, "Owó Fifò," on hand washing
• In Pidgin, on ebola symptoms and what to do if one experiences them

Also from Nigeria, there is an official poster in Igbo - Nje Ọrịa Ebola - which since it is from the Nigerian government, may also be in other languages like Hausa and Yoruba.

There is a Senegalese video (also on YouTube) about ebola in Wolof, with some written French. (An August 29 newscast in Wolof on ebola in Senegal is also on YouTube.)

A GooglePlay app "About Ebola" is available in English, Jola (Diola in French spelling), Krio, Liberian English, and Wolof.

There appears to be significant information on ebola in Fula, notably on pulaar.org, including a recent long article "Ebola Hol no haɓtortee?" (ebola, how can it be fought/countered?). Peeral Media has a short piece in Fula on Facebook, with a parallel English version. A 5-minute audio "Info sur Ebola en Pulaar/Fulfulde" is available on YouTube (accompanied by one graphic). Another example is a story on Voice of Nigeria about the Nigerian Hajj Commission's screening of pilgrims going to Mecca: "Hukuuma hijju Najeeriya wiɗitay hijooɓe Najeeriya."

In Guinea, Studio Hirondelle in collaboration with the rural radio network has produced radio programs on ebola in Fula (Peulh in French; the endonym in Guinea is Pular) and Malinké (a Manding language for which the endonym is Maninka or Maninkakan).

WHO and Athinkra

Athinkra LLC is coordinating translations of a FAQ on ebola provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). Languages on its list so far include N'Ko (an alphabet for Manding), Vai (in its own script and Latin alphabet), and Fula (in the new Adlam script - more on the latter in another post). (Thanks to Coleman Donaldson for calling my attention to this.)

Rubric, Wikimedia ZA, and WikiProject Medicine

Further afield, there is a collaboration in South Africa among Rubric (a languages services company), Wikimedia ZA, and WikiProject Medicine (which has a Translation Task Force/Project) to translate ebola health info on Wikipedia into the official languages of that country.

Summary and thoughts

The above is an eclectic sampling of initiatives and reporting on ebola in some African languages. Much of this is happening on country levels or by individual or small group initiatives. This post helps fill out blank spots in the picture as portrayed in the previous posting, but it is far from complete.

At this point it would seem very useful to have a way of monitoring such efforts and products with an eye to facilitating communication and sharing among them (particularly important, I'd argue, for cross-border and closely-related languages), reviewing material for accuracy, and building a data bank of medical translations in African languages about ebola and related public health topics.

Multilingual Literacy Day, 2014

It's actually International Literacy Day today (8 September), but given how often in the case of multilingual societies statistics on literacy are not clear on what they are measuring and assuming, I'm taking liberty with the title of this brief post.

Recalling how often one encounters or hears of people schooled in Africa - and literate or even highly educated - who say they cannot read their first language, it is worth asking why literacy for polyglots is not more often multilingual literacy. The technical term for this is pluriliteracy (multiliteracy seems to be more often used for ability to read and use diverse media).

Additional thoughts (the morning after)

First, the theme of the 2014 observation of International Literacy Day - "Literacy and Sustainable Development" - highlights an important link. Literacy isn't just nice to have, but fundamental, and this bears reiterating.

Second, my initial comments above come from a long interest in the subject of multilingual literacy or pluriliteracy, especially in Africa. I found it striking that people could go through extensive schooling without ever seeing their maternal languages in print, or learning established (even if historically recent) rules of orthography for them - and then to read discussions of literacy in societies in which these people grew up described as a single thing (as if we were talking about literacy in a monolingual region of the US or China). A regional news summary on the UNESCO site entitled "Celebrating International Literacy Day 2014 in the Sahel countries," for instance, lists many activities, but only in Burkina Faso is there any mention of which languages were involved: "articles related to literacy in French and local languages."

My active interest in this topic goes back to the beginning of the UN Literacy Decade in 2003 when I set up a discussion group on literacy theory, practice, and policy in multilingual contexts worldwide, called "Multilingual Literacy" (Literacy in Multilingual Societies). It sought to promote consideration of questions such as:

• What approaches to adult literacy and basic education for children work best on the countrywide, community and individual levels in multilingual societies?
• Should measures of "literacy" (% literate) be more complex in countries or communities where multiple languages and maybe even scripts are used?
• What other issues arise with various approaches to literacy in countries where many languages are spoken (e.g., language survival, national unity, prioritizing limited education resources, production of materials for post-literacy, role of ICT, meaning of literacy to the people...), and how can they be addressed?
• What about terminology and related concepts? (e.g., multiliteracy, pluriliteracy, multi/bilingualism)

Here's hoping that the next International Literacy Day pays more attention to pluriliteracy in multilingual societies...

Kamusi at 20: Keeping the vision alive and working

The Kamusi Project, which seeks to provide an open dictionary of all languages, for use in reference and in language technology development, is facing a challenge not unfamiliar to other language-related initiatives: Funding. This effort - sometimes perceived as too ambitious or esoteric but always visionary in its goals and use of technology - is currently campaigning for support through the Global Giving Open Challenge.

Kamusi was originally developed in 1994 as a proposal by Dr. Martin Benjamin and Dr. Ann Biersteker, then both at Yale University's Council on African Studies. Billed as the "Internet Living Swahili Dictionary," its objective was to respond to the need for new reference material on Swahili, and to do so by using the potential user contributions over the internet (this was more than 6 years before Wikipedia was launched). It is worth noting that a reason cited for exploring the internet medium for dictionary development was unfavorable "economics of Swahili publishing." Kamusi is still today an excellent Swahili resource (both monolingual and English <-> Swahili), even as its goals have evolved.

Kamusi was run at Yale, with benefit of US Department of Education funding, until 2006, and during this time was recognized as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge 2001. At the end of this period, Dr. Benjamin - Martin to those who know him - summarized Kamusi in the context of African languages on the web at Wikimania 2006. He continued to run Kamusi as it transitioned in 2007 from Yale to a server hosted by the World Language Documentation Centre.

Under Martin's direction, Kamusi has since then been incorporated as a non-profit in the US and Switzerland (where he lives with his family), and has expanded its mission beyond Swahili to a pan-African and eventually global scope.

Funding from Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for Kamusi, as part of the multi-member African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) project, enabled Kamusi to lead development of locales for 100 African languages (locale data facilitates computer software handling a language) and terminology for 12 African languages. Later funding from the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) enabled work on a pilot for Kamusi's multilingual model (basically, there's a lot more to a multilingual dictionary than words in parallel, since concepts don't line up neatly across languages).

Since the conclusion of major funding in 2012, Kamusi has continued work on the multilingual model, including how to annotate degrees of separation (when a concept is translated through another language), homophones, multi-word expressions (something I personally wish machine translation had been better at years ago), and data input from any language. In 2013 Kamusi's work gained it recognition as a launch partner in the White House Big Data Initiative.

Although Kamusi has an affiliation with l'École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) since last September, this has not filled the funding gap to enable completion of the programming work necessary to bring all of this to fruition and take the Global Online Living Dictionary (GOLD) from a proven pilot project to a full-scale reality.
 
Looking at Kamusi's history - which is long in internet terms - one is impressed by the thought and effort that has gone into it, by Martin and by a range of other contributors, from its beginning at Yale to recent collaborations and donors, with many individual contributions all along. It would be a shame if current funding difficulties would cause this important work to end.

For something like Kamusi, it helps, I think, to look as far ahead as we can look back. Twenty yeas from now, the advantages of building language resources for the many languages that don't have the economic or political/policy weight to get commercial and investor attention - even if they have demographic importance (keep in mind how quickly Africa's population is growing, for instance), but especially if those numbers aren't there either - will be a lot more apparent than they seem today. For countries where many of these languages are spoken, like most of those in Africa, there is a long-term need for projects like Kamusi that connect high level language technology with less-resourced and often low-status languages - and in Kamusi's case, also link those with the more widely spoken international languages.

At this point, Kamusi's effort to gain enough support to qualify for ongoing listing on Global Giving is an attempt to keep the organization going at a critical period in its history. Please consider helping.

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.

The problem with calling some languages "local"

Only in Africa, it seems, can a language spoken by millions be called a "local language." The term is used widely, not just in Africa, and although I've also used it, I'm increasingly finding it problematic as employed in African contexts for two main main reasons:

1. It is inexact, often serving as a catch-all term for languages other than the main Europhone official languages, from those like Akposso that are truly localized in use, to languages like Hausa spoken across many borders by many people of many backgrounds as a first or second language. 
2. It is misleading. As a term, "local language" implies a low rank of importance relative to "official language" or "language of wider communication," when for some languages and/or in some contexts such a hierarchy of importance would be inappropriate. In Senegal and Mali, for instance, Wolof and Bambara, respectively, are spoken more widely than French, but are sometimes referred to as "local languages." Such indiscriminate use of the term arguably pigeonholes languages and disincentivizes thinking about their use in communication, education, extension, etc.

At this point, I'd like to suggest that more thought be given to using the term "local language" when speaking and writing about African languages. It probably should be used much more sparingly than it is now. Sometimes a language really is local, but other times, what we may call "local language" in Africa is actually more widely spoken than some European languages that we probably never would call "local."

It may be that a key piece in more deliberate use/non-use of "local language" in Africa is informing development, health, diplomatic, and other specialists about the sociolinguistics, culture, and policies regarding African languages in areas they work. Should a basic course about African languages and multilingualism in development and contemporary society (this is different than studying a language or intro to African cultures) be part of the education of non-Africans planning to work in Africa?

"Neighbor languages" in an African context

A recent edition of The Economist has an article on Scandinavian languages (especially Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) entitled "Neighbour languages." Although the cultural context and the fact these languages are standardized and widely used in written form, make their situation different than what one would find in Africa, some of the discussion sounds like it could describe closely related languages like the several Manding languages in West Africa, for instance, or the Nguni languages of South Africa.

The term "neighbor language" is used in academic discussions of Scandinavian languages - note for example the description of the keynote by Prof. Arne Torp to the recent (July 2014) conference of the Association for Language Awareness - and apparently also in popular discourse about these languages in English (judging by a quick online search; I have no way of assessing usage in the languages themselves).

It is tempting to suggest wider use of this term in discussing the sociolinguistic situations and language policy and planning needs in Africa. The term "neighbor language" itself would be seem accessible to a wide range of people who are not specialized in linguistics or language issues - including development experts, who nevertheless may discuss "local language" issues where they work.

The problem however is another aspect of the sociolinguistic geography in West Africa that is very different than that of Scandinavia. The term "neighbor language" in Scandinavia, as Prof. Torp points out, is a reference to linguistic similarity rather than geographic proximity. But the latter makes the term's use more or less unambiguous in that region (despite some linguistic diversity there). In much of Africa, however, a group of linguistic "neighbor languages" may be geographically interspersed with other unrelated languages, such that one's geographic neighbors may speak as their first language, something not mutually intelligible. Speaking of a "neighbor language" in that context could be interpreted linguistically or geographically.

All of this has me wondering if some term analogous to"neighbor languages" might be helpful in framing discussions and planning relating to languages in Africa. We already have "cross-border languages" to describe the common situation where first languages or regional lingua francas are spoken in two or more countries, and this concept was used by the African Academy of Languages in constituting several "Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions" to consider issues like harmonization of orthographies across borders.

But there does not seem to be an easy term to use when discussing "linguistic neighbor languages" in Africa.

This is important in Africa because for instance efforts to develop educational materials in a language that has close "linguistic neighbors" may be undertaken in isolation from (if not ignorance of the existence of) those neighbors. This has hidden costs in missed opportunities for sharing and adapting information among related languages. A way to easily refer to and call attention to those "neighbors" might facilitate awareness and productive discussions in this regard.

In any event, "neighbor languages" is a phenomenon not unique to Scandinavia and Africa, of course, and there are useful lessons to share across regions in how to accommodate and take advantage of similarity of closely related languages.

See you in Bamako in 2016?

Forty-eight years ago today, in Bamako, Mali, began a UNESCO-supported expert meeting on the "Unification of Alphabets of National Languages."* Running from 28 February until 5 March, 1966, this meeting was a key part of efforts to harmonize or standardize writing systems for several West African languages, which fall under the category that we now refer to as "cross-border" languages. Would the 50th anniversary of this event be an ideal time to revisit its impact, and ongoing challenges and opportunities for written African languages in general?

The Bamako 1966 meeting followed several smaller meetings and built on efforts that began during the colonial period. It in turn was followed by others, notably one in Niamey in 1978 that attempted to take the harmonization up a level with a proposed standard reference alphabet for all of Africa. One of the issues with writing African languages that had limited or no written tradition has been how to accommodate sounds that were not readily represented by imported alphabets. Another was how to develop standards for languages that crossed Africa's new borders - which in many instances were also borders between areas where different Europhone languages, and their respective phonetic systems, were dominant. These meetings dealt with both, drawing on national experiences and expert opinions.

The result of these meetings was a remarkably coherent set of standards that has guided many African countries on developing orthographies for their national languages (as the term tends to be used there).

In later years, conferences and expert meetings on planning for African languages dealt more with policy, and applications such as literacy and localization. Yet there are still issues with African languages in print and writing, some larger, some dealing with details, and some that could not have been anticipated by the notables and experts of half a century ago. Some of those are certainly being addressed by the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN)'s Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions and National Language Structures.

Ultimately it would be for ACALAN and/or other African language organizations to decide on the utility of a general meeting in the near future, but what might a conference on the 50th anniversary of the seminal Bamako 1966 expert meeting have on its agenda? As indicated above, one issue might be a kind of stock-taking of how the work of the early expert meetings has served a range of efforts in African languages, from education and literacy, to literature, and via Unicode, to social media and mobile devices.

And about Unicode, how is it supporting written African languages? One issue which seems to have receded as the technology has improved, is how well dynamic composition works for complex Latin (where characters have accent/tone mark combinations not included as single characters in the Unicode standard - some languages such as Yoruba and Igbo have this). There may be other details such as that of the capital "eng" letter.)

A larger issue is how the focus on "unification" of African alphabets on the one hand and country-level practice on the other relate. "Harmonization" seems to be a fortuitous concept, but is it, and how should it work going forward, when dynamic local usage may seem to go the other way? (See for example the earlier post on "Texting in Wolof & implicatons for standard orthographies.")

Since the early conferences (and indeed language policy in many states) focused on the Latin-based alphabet, a new conference might also consider other scripts, such as Ethiopic/Ge'ez, Arabic (often referred to as Ajami when used to write African languages), and N'Ko. The focus could be more technical, including issues such as harmonization (especially for Ajami) and transliteration, to support more policy options for countries where diverse scripts are used.

We're still two years out from the 50th anniversary, but it is not too early to discuss the utility of using that occasion to bring together a new generation of experts working on support for written African languages.

* The French language version is available on the Bisharat website.

Language, Peace and Security

On this International Mother Language Day, the US Institute of Peace, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and SIL International have organized a "Symposium on Language, Peace and Security" at the USIP in Washington, DC. It is being webcast on the event page (in break as I write and post this).

A Twitter hashtag is being used for some live tweets: #langpeacesec. In one tweet, @USIP indicated that the proceedings will be made available online about a week after the symposium.

Description (excerpts from event page):

The role of language—both as a means of communication and as an expression of identity – is a vital consideration for any serious discussion of peace and security. The Symposium on Language, Peace, and Security, which marks UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, will:

• Look at the overlooked linguistic and educational dimensions of a simmering conflict pitting Pattani Malay-speaking Muslims against the government of Thailand.
• Address the importance of ensuring linguistic human rights through educational policies and practices that value and promote linguistic diversity.
• Consider language policy in education and how it may serve to exacerbate or mitigate violence.

Can careful consideration of language and communications in discussions of peace and security lead to real solutions to conflicts? How do issues of language, language complexity, and communication play out in peace-building efforts and ongoing security? How can language issues be identified and addressed effectively in policy planning and execution?
...

Keynote Presenters:

Patricia Friedrich
Associate Professor of Linguistics/Rhetoric and Composition
Arizona State University

Suwilai Presrirat
Professor of Linguistics and Founder of the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia
Mahidol University, Thailand

Terrence Wiley
President
Center for Applied Linguistics

Zeena Zakharia
Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Education
University of Massachusetts, Boston

George A. Lopez, Keynote Discussant
Vice President of the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding
U.S. Institute of Peace

Peter Weinberger, Moderator
Senior Program Officer
United States Institute of Peace

Perspectives from the Grassroots
Community-based practitioners reflect on the relevance of language to peace and security.
Joel Trudell, SIL International; Unian Samoh, Mahidol University; Cecilia Ochoa, Save the Children; Micael Olsson, World Vision

Personal perspectives

The symposium topic and presentations helpful in expanding discussion of the importance of language(s) in planning and development-related work.

For some time I have discussed links among language, development, and information and communications technology. My work in support of localization and interest in applications of human language technologies address the language - technology connection. The connection between language and development, as others have observed, still needs more work. The connection between language on the one hand and peace and security on the other is an important complement to the latter.

Having in recent years worked more in relation to peace and security, I appreciated the opportunity to hear from others making the connections between those concerns and language planning.

Language is never the cause of conflict (as some scholars have pointed out in the past), but in some cases it might be a focus in conflict. Moreover, as several presenters showed, attention to first languages may be important in alleviating factors (such as social exclusion) that may lead to conflict.

Various interesting lessons and case studies in the symposium, with two presentations that explored the particular issues and approaches in southern Thailand. Some useful concepts included: "peace linguistics" (Dr. Friedrich); and "equity in learning" (Ms. Ochoa).

The Gallup World Poll and African languages

Gallup, Inc. has conducted its World Poll survey in 160 countries annually since 2005. Such an undertaking naturally involves many translations of the questionnaires (research instruments) for use in many different societies. According to Gallup's Country Data Set Details (2005-2013), in the 26 African countries where the poll was taken, questionnaires were translated into the following African languages, in addition to the Europhone official languages of most countries - English, French, or Portuguese (this list was keyed in from the country-by-country info in their data table; outlinks on language names are to Wikipedia articles):

Afrikaans Arabic Chadian Arabic Moroccan Arabic Ateso Bambara Bariba Bemba Dioula Ewe (Ghana, Togo) Fon Fulfulde (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali) Hausa (Ghana, Niger, Nigeria) Igbo Kabye Kaonde Kinyarwanda Kirundi Krio Luganda

Malagasy Mende Moore Ndebele Ngambaye Runyankole Setswana Shona Silozi Songhai Sotho Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania) Temne Tonga Twi Wolof Xhosa Yoruba Zarma  Zulu

This represents a significant effort, involving translations that are, as I understand it, done on the country level. It also implies a number of issues that would be interesting to explore further, such as how translations are handled for the several cross-border languages used in the poll (indicated in the above list by two or more country names in parentheses). A related issue is whether there is any cross-reference in the translation process between versions in very closely related languages (such as Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, or the Manding languages,.Bambara and Dioula (Jula), or the Nguni languages, Ndebele, Xhosa, and Zulu).

Another issue is assuring equivalency among translations from the original language (English) version into the whole range of languages. This is an obvious challenge for something of such wide multinational scope, for which the usual equivalency testing would be too hard and expensive (at least with available human language technology). How well can tight revisions of translations from the main language version(s) country-by-country, pair-by-pair assure that the same thing is being asked across diverse languages?

Yet another issue is how easily enumerators who speak the languages fluently, but have had little or no familiarity with the written forms of those languages can become competent in reading and administering questionnaires in them. Most if not all of the above languages have a written form, but some of these have had limited use - schools in Africa often focus uniquely on Europhone languages, and it's not uncommon to hear educated Africans say that they cannot read or write their mother tongue.

Finally, thinking about survey work in African languages generally, what might be the possibility of survey companies like Gallup and scholars doing academic research somehow sharing data on their translated questionnaires? Could this be useful towards developing terminologies for all future survey work, as well as for any attempts at analysis in languages of the surveyed?

ICT4D and L10n programs: Shall e'er the twain meet?

Graduate programs in information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) was the subject of recent postings on the Web2forDev list. There are also graduate programs in localization (L10n). Is there any overlap, any treatment of L10n approaches and technologies in ICT4D programs? Any discussion of work on ICT4D in L10n programs?

These are two emerging interdisciplinary fields that would seem to have a lot of potential links on the technology and communication sides, especially as concerns work in multilingual societies of Africa and much of the rest of the world.

In any event, here is a quick, selected, and certainly incomplete list of graduate programs in each:

ICT for Development

• Master of Science in Information and Communication Technology for Development (MS-ICTD), Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society, University of Colorado - Boulder
• Master's Programme in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D), Department of Computer Sciences, Stockholm University
• ICTs for Development MSc, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester
• Practising Sustainable Development (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) (MSc/PGDip), Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London

Localization

• MA Translation and Localization Management, Monterrey Institute of International Studies
• Multilingual Computing and Localisation MSc (& distance), University of Limerick
• Master 's Degree in Translation and Localisation Technologies, Universitat Jaume I
• Certificate in Localization: Customizing Software for the World, Professional and Continuing Education (Dept of Computer Science & Engineering, Dept. of Human Centered Design & Engineering, and Dept. of Linguistics), University of Washington 
• (there are many programs in translation that may deal with aspects of localization)

It would be interesting to know of other programs in either, and especially to know of any crossover or combined programs.offerings. Do any institutions have programs in both ICT4D and L10n, and if so, what happens there?

Addendum

If you take ICTs out of the equation, the larger, longer term issue of connections between applied linguistics and the study of languages on the one hand, and the field of development (study and practice) on the other becomes clear. This is a topic I have raised before and hope to come back to again.

The field of localization (L10n) is broad with what I'd characterize as two main areas of focus: content and communication; and software and interface. Localization is often treated together with translation, and from the outside sometimes looks like a sub-field of the latter. This is understandable as it almost always involves translation of terms and text. However localization also involves cultural considerations. Technically, in some contexts, localization might not involve what we usually consider translation at all, if it is simply a matter of adapting content and software for speakers/readers of the same language in different cultural areas.

This cultural dimension, if you will, of localization would potentially be another connecting point of localization and ICT4D, though hopefully without omitting the essential linguistic dimension. (17-12-13)

The "eng" times for unified capital ŋ?

Perhaps the most widely used "extended Latin" character, the letter ŋ (pronounced "eng" or "engma"), has two different upper case forms that are not used interchangeably, but used alternately by different groups of languages. One of these resembles an N but with a descending hook on the right leg ("N-form"), and the other resembling a larger version of the ŋ ("n-form"). The latter, in turn, has stylistic variations in which the right leg either descends below the line, or stays above it.

Forms of letter "eng"*

The current status and future of these dual forms of capital, and how best to handle them technically for displays were the subject of a brief discussion last month (Nov. 2013) in the wake of proposed change in Dejavu fonts that was first brought up on the developers list for the latter:

• Dejavu-fonts list under title New glyph for U+014A
• Also on "The Eng" list, a specialized forum managed by Michael Everson

In fact, this is a potential issue that has long been known, since different regions tend to use different forms, and different fonts have one or the other form. Consequently,there are many situations where doesn't know what form the capital will take. A larger issue is whether there needs to be a new Unicode character for one of the uppercase forms - what would be called "disunification" of the existing capital letter.

Background

In linguistic terms, the letter ŋ stands for a "velar n," which is pronounced as "ng" in the English word, "king." If it were used in standard English spelling, you might come across something like "siŋiŋ a soŋ." It is used in the orthographies of a range of languages from Saami in northern Europe to a number of African languages (mainly in the west and central regions, but also Dinka in South Sudan and Karamojong in Uganda), to some Aboriginal languages in Australia. (It also figures in the International Phonetic Alphabet, which of course does not need an upper case).

In many languages, the eng is distinguished from "ng" which is a prenasalized "g," pronounced "n-g," and in any event is especially useful in the beginning of words.** In the Fula language, for instance, the difference between "ng" and "ŋ" at the beginning of a number of words is meaningful. The root ŋor- at least in Maasinankoore has to do with a riverbank, while ngor- is derived from the root for male, wor-. A hippopotamus might be referred to as ngabbu, but the root ŋabb- has to do with climbing something or mounting a horse. Ngari is came or arrived; ŋari is beauty. There are other such examples.

Personally it was in Togo that I first encountered use of the letter ŋ, in the Ewe name for Peace Corps and when learning some of the Ewe and Kabiye languages. Then later in Mali when learning Fula and Bambara. The capital letter was always in the "n-form" in those places and in all I ever saw in African languages.

Later I found that a reason for that consistency of usage probably had to do with efforts to standardize letter forms, notably with the African Reference Alphabet proposed 35 years ago in Niamey by the Meeting of Experts on the Transcription and Harmonization of African Languages. (The glyph used in the pre-Unicode African special character standard ISO 6438 [1983] varies for some reason, with an earlier version having the n-form, and later versions from the 1990s showing the N-form.)

Rotated G

One aspect of the graphical history of the letter ŋ is worth noting before moving on: Apparently early printers would sometimes rotate a capital G to produce this character. So in effect the so-called "n-form" capital ŋ actually also looks like it could be called "turned-G form" capital ŋ. (I've produced the one at the right for comparison purposes only.***)

What's the problem then?

The problem with the two main forms (or "glyphs") of the capital ŋ - "n-form" and "N-form" - boils down to not being sure which form you are going to get since different fonts have one or the other form, and with the alternative forms being preferred or required in different places for different languages. This is because the two main forms are treated as the same character in Unicode, with the same "code point" (which a computer software uses to call up the appropriate symbol from the selected or default font).

These are not new issues, but now that they are getting more attention (which may actually be a good sign to the extent that more is going into print in the languages concerned).

From where we are now, there appear to be two options:

1. Continue as is, but develop means for locales or language preferences to select the appropriate form ("glyph") of upper case ŋ from fonts that have the desired glyph. However the technical feasibility is apparently an issue. 
2. "Disunify" the capital ŋ into two characters, with one of the major forms being given a new Unicode code point. This would be disruptive, but extremely so if it also required a new code point for a paired lowercase ŋ (with the exact same appearance as the one used throughout this posting) - all kinds of existing digital texts, fonts, and software would have to adjust for the change in some significant set of languages.

Unicode in principle calls for a separate code point for each character so one question is, that with two very different forms/glyphs being historically used and preferred (with varying degrees of intensity) in in different regions, how was the decision made to treat these as variants?

I'm actually looking over some past discussions to see how the issue and alternative approaches were treated. A 20+ message exchange on A12n-collaboration on 4-6 April 2002 among Peter Constable, John Hudson, Andrew Cunningham, and me dealt mainly with forms used in Africa and to a lesser degree Australia, with mention of Saami. (I am reconstituting the 2002-2004 archive of this list to post on A12n-archive.) However that treated all forms as variants.

Ultimately however the main question is the best way forward for all concerned. It is worth noting that Sjur Moshagen's otherwise well-framed proposal to disunify (at the end of the recent email discussions cited above) would put all the burden of change on Africa and anyone working with the numerous African languages which have the ŋ in their orthographies. Disunification the other way would similarly cost those using Saami and Australian Aboriginal languages - so it's a difficult set of choices.

A Niger exception?

A quick note about Denis Jacquereye's statement in the recent email discussions that in Niger, the N-form capital ŋ is more common - this despite the n-form being established in Niger's orthographies and in the "harmonized" orthographies used across the region. It would be of interest to see any examples, but one wonders if a limited choice of fonts might have been a major factor. A larger issue in terms of planning would be the cost of introducing or establishing such a variation ("dis-harmonization"?) in a wider regional usage, and how that might impact font development, software localization (Fula is a regional cross-border language; Zarma is part of the cross-border Sonrai cluster, for which localization is being done), etc. This would be even more problematic if Unicode were to decide to "disunify" the character.

---

* Source of illustration: Wikimedia Commons
** In the orthographies of many East African languages, such as that for standard Swahili, an apostrophe after ng is used to indicate this difference: ng' = ŋ.
*** "Turned-g" is actually a character used to transliterate text in the Georgian language script.

Apprendre le bambara à Paris

Je viens de decouvrir deux initiatives pour enseigner la langue bambara (Bamanankan) à Paris :

• Donniyakadi, une association créée en 2008 en France, qui a pour but "le développement des échanges culturels entre la France et le Mali, notamment dans le domaine des langues nationales maliennes." Ils depense des cours de soir en bambara depuis trois ans déjà. (Dɔnniya ka di en Bambara veut dire "le savoir est bon, agréable, plaisant.")
• INALCO, l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, dont les programmes sur le Mandingue (qui comprend le Bambara) sont signalés par le blog Apprendre le bambara. L'INALCO ( Langues O'), existe depuis longtemps, bien sur. Il enseigne plus d’une centaine de langues, et délivre des diplômes divers.

Ce qui m'intéresse est de savoir les dimensions d'utilisation et d'instruction des langues africaines en France, surtout quand il s'agit des initiatives entreprises par des associations privées ou ONGs telles que Donniyakadi. Et aussi de telles initiatives d'instruction en langues africaines (bambara / mandingue, ou autres) qui existent ailleurs dans le monde hors de l'Afrique. Une autre question intéressante est comment les communautés africaines dans les lieux comme Paris organisent et/ou s'associent avec des programmes d'enseignement et apprentissage des langues africaines - soit par des associations ou par des institutions telles que l'INALCO.

On voit sur le site web de l'INALCO, qu'il offre les langues africaines suivantes (en plus que le Mandigue) : Amharique, Arabe maghrébin, Berbère, Comorien, Haoussa, Peul, Soninké, Swahili, Tigrigna, Wolof, et Yoruba.

A noter que les sites (blogs) d' Apprendre le Bambara et Donniyakadi donnent des liens divers qui seraient utiles à ceux qui veulent apprendre le Bambara.

Quick notes: ANLoc offline & Yahoogroups RSS problem

The African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) website is still down. Although I am not personally involved in its management, hopefully there will be some update to share soon. Hence the site RSS (and that for the subsidiary PanAfriL10n wiki), as seen in the right-hand column/sidebar, are not working.

Also still haven't sorted out how to revive the RSS feeds for Yahoogroups also featured in the sidebar. Hope to resolve or reformat soon. (Per discussions online, this apparently relates to a group setting changed when Yahoo updated the groups features.)

The presentation of sites and groups on Beyond Niamey was discussed more fully in a recent post.

I've also started building some short pages on this blog site, which are linked via tabs below the header.