Telling, writing and reading stories

mEducation Alliance logo

On Friday I had the chance to join the fifth annual mEducation Alliance Symposium and it got me thinking again about stories. Everyone has a story, as they say, and sometimes many. Technology may facilitate the telling of those stories, and it will be interesting to examine in more depth the work of organizations that are exploring this potential.

One of the things noted in some literacy efforts is how newly literate people will express themselves in the new medium - writing (literacy is not just learning how to read, a fact that is sometimes forgotten). Other efforts even going back some years have had interesting results putting video recorders in the hands of people who never had access to it and letting them document their livelihoods.

Now with smaller and more powerful devices in the hands of more people in more places, the issue becomes how to exploit the potential not only for delivering content from the usual centers and sources (with no disrespect...), but also for facilitating creation and collaboration by more people in more languages (including heretofore less-resourced ones), linking speech, text, and images in new ways. And then, how to bring rapidly evolving machine translation technology into the process.

Focus on the stories - from the autobiographic, to fiction, to community histories, to practical experiences...

I hope to come back to this soon with reference to at least a couple of current projects.

RFI's new Mandenkan service & webpage

RFI Mandenkan logo

Radio France Internationale (RFI) launched a new service in Manding - "RFI Mandenkan" - on Monday 19 October, along with a webpage for the service in French and Manding.

The bilingual webpage featured what appears to be Bambara (one of the Manding tongues - see below), and uses an orthography close to the official one used in Mali. (One minor difference is use of "ny" in place of the letter "ɲ".) It will be interesting to track how this content evolves (and whether and how VOA's "Mali Kura Bambara" service might respond).

Regarding the RFI Mandenkan broadcasts, there was apparently confusion among some (based on a message seen on an email list) as to what frequencies were to carry the first Mandenkan emissions - maybe this is typical for newly started shortwave radio services.

A comment about the broadcasts by Nafadji Sory Condé (on RFI's article announcing the service) called attention to issues with terminology in Mandenkan, and suggested that the broadcast staff consult with N'Ko specialists - this is an interesting perspecive, since evidently some in the N'Ko movement are really studying the language in its diversity as part of developing and teaching a literary standard for Manding. In other words, the language itself is not lacking, but knowledge of the range and depth of its vocabulary may not be known to all native speakers educated primarily in French-medium schools.

I took the chance to listen to some of the audio via the ma.rfi.fr webpage (you can click on a couple of places at the head of the page to listen), and was suitably humbled (fast for my rusty L2 level), though I was able to get some of it. Overall, it sounded smooth, which I guess one should expect from this level of radio.

About Manding & Mandenkan

Manding is a term for a group of (mostly) mutually intelligible languages within the Mande language family of West Africa - notably Bambara, Jula (Dioula), Malinké, and Mandingo. It is spoken as a first or second language by significant populations in all or parts of several countries: Mali; Burkina Faso; Côte d'Ivoire; Guinea; Gambia; and Senegal.

Mandenkan is a way of saying "Manding language." Manding in English and Mandingue in French obviously originated from one or more of the Manding languages. However the term Mandenkan as a word in the language(s) to describe them together may be a recent construct (I recall hearing questions about it in the late 1980s, and a 2000 publication by Prof. Eric Charry seems to indicate that Mandenkan and another form, Mandekan, originated with linguists).

The kan suffix is interesting. While in English or especially French, "tongue" ("langue") is used to mean language or expression, in Manding, "throat" ("kan") is used to express language or voice. The endonyms for the Manding languages mentioned above are Bamanankan, Julakan, Maninkakan, and Mandinkakan.

RFI's choice of Mandenkan

RFI's choice of Manding is interesting for at least a couple of reasons. First, they deliberately chose a category that crossed many borders in West Africa (note the quote by Imogen Lamb in this piece from Mali Presses), as well as the standard linguistic demarcations (Bambara, Malinké, etc.). Compare with VOA's focus on Bambara in Mali. And second, this is the first African language service that RFI has undertaken in primarily a Francophone zone (demographically most of the potential audience for RFI Hausa is in Nigeria, not Niger). For a more complete discussion of these and related issues, see Coleman Donaldson's blog post from last year, when RFI's Manding project was still in formation, "RFI and Voice of America learn Manding."

(Of possible interest on a similar topic: "Hausa on the international radio websites.")

International Mother Language Day 2015 in Africa

Poster for IMLD 2015

Yes, the 16th annual International Mother Language Day was observed several months ago (21 February), but it's still worth highlighting a few of the IMLD 2015 events and articles in Africa. In the absence (as far as I've seen) of any comprehensive summary of IMLD activities on the continent, perhaps this can serve as a small way of facilitating exchange of information about the different kinds of activities that governments, NGOs, and universities have organized. (It's only 4 months until the next observance, by the way.)

The below list is only a selection, and not in any way comprehensive. A note about this posting is included at the end.

Angola:

 

"Culture Minister Calls Angolans for Natural Coexistence of Mother Tongues" (the Culture Minister, Rosa Cruz e Silva, called attention to the plurilingual nature of Angolan society. Theme of IMLD there was "United in the linguistic and cultural diversity in Angola, let's valorize our integrity")

 

Benin:

 

"16ème journée internationale de la langue maternelle : Pour une éducation inclusive à travers et par la langue" (summary of observance in Kétou commune, which featured several government officials including the minister of culture, as well as the Nigerian ambassador)

Cameroon:

"La Journée Internationale de la Langue Maternelle - Le 21 février 2015" (Ceremony at the Ministère de l’Éducation de Base in Yaoundé, including young students who were taking part in experimental bilingual classes of a project of ELAN-Afrique)


Congo (DRC):

"Le ministre de la Culture et des Arts Banza Mulakaly s’investit dans la promotion des langues maternelles" (the minister of Culture and Arts spoke at a ceremony organized by the Observatoire des langues)

From "International Mother Language Day 2015 Celebrations" compilation  (Shalom University of Bunia planned two half-day conferences with activities including presentations from eleven researchers involved with the region’s languages and speeches from academics and public officials about the value of the mother tongue.)

Ghana: 

 

"Ghana joins the world to celebrate International Mother Language Day" (observance at University of Education, Winneba, Ajumako Campus, featuring a talk by Dr. Avea Ephraim Nosh; alternate link here)

"EDUCATION: UEW students mark Int’l Mother Language Day" [website now offline] (another story on the above event, mentioning contributions to the discussion by Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah, Prof. Samuel Asiedu Addo, and Mr. Samuel Donkoh)

"Radio broadcast in Akan, by Peter Essien" (calls for the same amount of attention to using Akan correctly on the air as is given to using English correctly)

"How Bible saved 8 Ghanaian languages" (highlights discussion by Rev. Erasmus Odonkor that translations of the Bible have played a key role in maintaining vitality of and literacy in several Ghanaian languages)

"Government urged to revive minority languages" (very brief item on observance in Accra in which experts called for language policy to promote mother tongue education for minority languages)

Kenya:

"International Mother Language Day: How well do you know your mother tongue?" (TV feature on IMLD including visit to classroom and interviews with people in the street)

"UoN Hosts International Mother Language Day" (a 2-day event hosted by University of Nairobi and co-organized by the Dept. of Linguistics and Languages, UNESCO, and an organization called Bible Translation and Literacy)

Madagascar:

"Tenin-dreny - La langue maternelle importe pour l'éducation" (highlights role of first lady Voahangy Rajaonarimampianina, the ministers of l'Artisanat, de la Culture et du Patrimoine [Brigitte Rasamoelina] and of Communication [Vonison Andrianjato] in the observance, which included, the awarding of the "Fantaro" prize; mention also of other events) 

Mali:

 

"Langues maternelles : UN LEVIER PRIVILEGIE POUR L’INTEGRATION SOCIALE" (Observance in Ouelessebougou, organized by l'Académie malienne des langues [AMALAN] and presided over by minister of education Kénékouo "Barthélemy" Togo)

Namibia:

 

"Chinamibia celebrates International Mother Language day" (Children of Namibia - ChiNamibia - and the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre held an event including dance, drama, music, and poetry that was intended to highlight the importance of mother tongues)

Nigeria:

 

"NICO Supports International Mother Language Day Celebration 2015" (article on the National Institute for Cultural Orientation site about planning for a later observance of IMLD)

"Nwaozor - The Significance of Mother Tongue" (newspaper op-ed on IMLD in which the author discusses the importance of first languages and makes some policy recommendations)

Seychelles:

 

"International Mother Language Day – Discovering poetry in Seychelles" (Seychelles Writers’ Association, known locally as " Lardwaz" held a short ceremony on IMLD, in which they revealed their proposed calendar for 2015)

 

Somalia:

 

"International Mother Language Day marked in Mogadishu" (the president of Djibouti and government representatives from Ethiopia and Kenya joined the observance in Mogadishu; article also mentions laying the cornerstone of the Somali Language Academy, about which more here)

South Africa:

"Deputy Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi observes International Mother Language Day, 21 Feb" (scheduled meeting with "future language practitioners" at University of Limpopo, Turf loop Campus, in Mankweng, Limpopo Province)

Tanzania:

"International Mother Language Day 2015" (blog posting by a Welsh person working in Tanzania, making connection between most children not speaking at home a language other than the Swahili used in school, and their lower scores in Standard 3 exams than native Swahili speakers)

Uganda:

From "International Mother Language Day 2015 Celebrations" compilation (Literacy and Adult Basic Education [LABE], a local NGO, planned language activities including reading and storytelling competitions in 6 post-conflict districts of northern Uganda)

Zimbabwe:

"Celebrate International Mother Language Day" (about preparations for celebrating IMLD by the San people in Tsholotsho)

Notes about this post & holding reserve posts

I actually started this post just after IMLD in February, but put it aside to focus on some other items. I added to it on a couple of occasions, and ultimately decided it was time to finish and publish.

As such this is a special case in an aspect of blogging I discovered over the years - having a number of drafts in the cooker, as it were. Some of those eventually I return to and complete more or less as planned, some change, and for others, the material in the draft might get repurposed. In this case, there was an obvious time limit on material related to an annual event (yours to decide if it already passed a more functional limit of utility). It turned out as intended, except that there was a second section to the original draft of this post that ultimately was not necessary, but that I may use later.

The secret life of Bambara Arial

Quite unexpectedly, I heard yesterday the names of two old 8-bit Malian computer fonts - Bambara Arial and Bambara Times - from two different people. Matt Heberger, who is coordinating work on the forthcoming Bambara translation of Where There is No Doctor mentioned that one of the translators provided him with copies of these fonts (as .ttf files), and Sam Samake, an old friend and former Peace Corps/Mali staff member, asked how I got "Bambara Arial" to work on the internet.

It wasn't supposed to be this way once Unicode rendered such special fonts unnecessary.

The history

In the 1990s, a joint project of the Malian Ministry of Education and the French Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique (ACCT; precursor to the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie), produced two modified/hacked versions of the Arial and Times fonts, replacing characters not used in the orthographies of Malian national languages with characters not present in those original fonts or other commercially available fonts of that era. Thus for example, the "q" was replaced with "ɛ"* (type "q" get "ɛ" instead).

Table from Enguehard & Mbodj 2004.* Caractère affiché is what you get;
Caractère initial is original character & the key you tap to get the new one.

This approach for adapting fonts for writing systems not supported by the pre-Unicode standards was fairly common 1980s and 1990s, including in a number of African countries like Mali. Fonts like these achieved what they were primarily intended for - being able to compose and print documents with the extended alphabets. One could also share digital copies of documents, but those could be properly read only with the same fonts. Different modified fonts - and Mali had several - were mtually incompatible. That was the whole reason, of course, for Unicode, which also makes it possible to share documents in any alphabet across the internet on any browser, wordprocessor, etc.

But while Unicode became the international standard, evidently at least some people in Mali kept using Bambara Arial and perhaps other similar "special fonts." In 2005, USAID-funded "Community Learning and Information Centers" (CLICs) relied on these fonts for anything done in Malian national languages (apparently not that often). It may be that technicians in these telecenters did not have Unicode explained to them in their project training or prior study of computers.

The word about obsolescence of 8-bit fonts like Bambara Arial may not have gotten too far, or maybe the notion of a need for a "special font" to process text in languages like Bambara just was too ingrained. At this point I'm just wondering how after almost 2 decades, these old fonts are still in circulation and conversation. Just two years ago, there were these references to Bambara Arial online (thanks to a Google search):

• N'oublie pas de les ecrire en vrai Bambara ''Bambara Arial''Dans Microsoft Word (Facebook, 2013-1-11)
• I would like to arrange for volunteer translators for Bambara. How can I access fonts for the Bambara alphabet (Bambara Arial for example)? (Google code Khan Academy issue tracker, 2013-3-23)

 

More to it?

Adapted from an image by Denis Jacquerye.

There's a twist to the story though. It seems that in one respect, these old fonts follow Malian orthographies better than the Unicode fonts. The letter ɲ has two forms of upper case, one like the lower case letter but bigger ("n-form") and the other like the capital N with a tail on the left leg ("N-form") on the left and right sides respectively of the image on the right. The "n-form" is most used in Mali and apparently in the hacked 8-bit "special fonts" like Bambara Arial; most Unicode fonts use the "N-form" (thanks to Matt Heberger for his observations on that.). I doubt that this alone could account for the persistence of the old fonts, but it might be a factor.

Maybe a new life could be given to the old fonts that people are still using by reencoding them to Unicode and releasing them under recognizable names.

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* Two articles in French mention modified 8-bit fonts used in Mali, showing which different characters were changed to extended Latin characters:  

Chantal Enguehard,et Chérif Mbodj. "Correcteurs orthographiques pour les langues africaines." Bulag 29, 2004, pp. 51-68.
Chantal Enguehard, et Soumana Kané. "Langues africaines et communication électronique : développement de correcteurs orthographiques." Agence universitaire de la Francophonie. Actes des Premières Journées scientifiques communes des réseaux de chercheurs concernant la langue, 31mai-1 juin 2004, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. pp.59-75.

Facebook page & the PanAfriL10n wiki

Profile picture for Beyond Niamey's
new Facebook page.

Two quick items:

• There is now a Facebook page for Beyond Niamey: https://www.facebook.com/BeyondNiamey. Please have a visit and let us know what you think.
• Am still working on getting the PanAfriL10n wiki into more respectable shape so as to make it again available for reference and contributions.

New entries to this blog are still being posted to Twitter (@donosborn) via RSS.

Access gap in the "Connectivity Declaration"?

History sometimes moves in spirals - after years have passed and many things change, you suddenly find yourself back in a same place, but maybe on another level. I had that sense of déjà vu in Bamako in 1999, discovering that projects were still hacking mutually incompatible fonts to be able to display characters used in Malian languages on computers, much like what Prof. David Dwyer and I had to do in 1989 in order to print the first draft of the Fulfulde lexicon. The intervening decade had of course seen some remarkable advances in information technology including the unfolding of the world wide web, but there was no perceptible change in terms of ability to use African (and many other) languages on computers.

I'm getting a similar sense of already-been-there today, reading about Facebook's Internet.org plan to beam the internet to remote parts of Africa and related news about the benefits of universal access to the internet including the "Connectivity Declaration."

"Access" means more than one thing

The current focus on universal internet access has me thinking back to that same period in Bamako mentioned above, when there was a great deal of enthusiasm on international development-focused email lists about how information technology and the WWW were going to transform, among other things, rural development in Africa. But while working in Mali it was clear that even if by some miracle one could get the technology to farmers, it still wouldn't speak their languages, nor even be able to properly display text in those languages, due to the font issue. (This observation was one of several leading to the Bisharat initiative, which is another story.)

From this point of view it was clear that "access" had more than one aspect, even though most discussions treated it as one issue. It was one thing to have a computer, and another to power and connect it, and another to pay for all that, and then ... with physical access secured, for a farmer or extension agent in, say, rural Mali, to actually make full (or any) use of it. The latter can be called "soft access," a term first used in contrast to "physical access" by an organization called TeleCommons (quoted here), which covers localization of content and interfaces in languages of the anticipated users. (Dwayne Bailey's reference to "last inch limitations" is another way of thinking about lack of soft access.)

Fast forward to the present, where the Connectivity Declaration mentions "access" five times and "accessible" once, but again as one undifferentiated problem to be solved and good to be achieved. And although one might interpret the intent more broadly, the focus does seem to again be technical. The Declaration certainly does not hint at the soft access issues inherent in diverse peoples taking advantage of "the tools and knowledge of the internet."

A focus on internet access as a connectivity issue is inadequate when discussing use by marginalized populations that are diverse in terms of their languages, cultures, and education levels (addressed by soft access), and in terms of other socio-economic factors (that may affect overall access). The Internet.org initiative to its credit does mention "Content isn’t available in the local language" (in response to "Why aren't more people connected") as a "barrier" it wishes to address, but this is only part of the equation - there are also technical language support and interface localization needs that fit under soft access.

Current issues and potential in soft access

So we're back at more or less the same place with regard to "access," but on another level with some changes:

• Unicode has largely resolved the font incompatibility issues mentioned above (I'd like to say completely resolved but there are still hiccups in implementation)
• Localization of software and apps in less-resourced languages is incomplete and sometimes uneven, but it is happening
• Input methods (hard & virtual keyboards/pads, STT) are still problematic for may extended Latin scripts and non-Latin writing systems, but the main issues now are arguably less technical than policy-based (lack of standards)
• Human language technology / natural language processing offers the potential to 
• bridge text ⇄ speech for speakers of less-resourced languages with new forms of soft access as well as content deliver
• bridge languages by machine translation of content
• Content localization and creation, which like software localization is incomplete and sometimes uneven, extends the concept to include soft access to knowledge

So we're much better situated to enable soft access today than we were 10-15 years ago, but there is still not the same focus on these issues as on the simpler (which is not to say easy) challenge of technical connectivity. Soft access means more and can be facilitated by more than was previously the case, but it will not come in the same access "box" as internet access without explicit attention. Part of the reason is that "universal internet access" is implemented on a wide scale (national, regional, continental), while soft access in the case of most less-resourced languages is particular to smaller areas and populations.

Soft access needs attention from people and organizations closer to the need - governments, NGOs, companies, and communities on the national and local levels, as well as regional and continental organizations (such as ACALAN). However I would suggest it also needs advocacy from the same people in positions of influence and power - like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the other originators of the Connectivity Declaration - who are promoting universal internet access.

Whose "tools and knowledge"?

A blog post by Dr. Mark Graham of the Oxford Internet Institute in response to a tweet by Jimmy Wales (another one of the originators of the Connectivity Declaration) ...

@kshrivertucker @urbandata it is obvious from all trends the net will be available to nearly everyone in 10 years. No contrary evidence.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) September 27, 2015

... raises some issues about the impact of corporate-sponsored internet access that are worth considering in this context (these do not represent all of the analysis in the article). What kind of internet service or choice of content, and under what conditions (ads?) would Facebook's Internet.org, or Google's Free Zone (another free concept) provide? And what might be the impact on local internet markets? Dr. Graham suggests that

In much the same way that food aid as a development strategy harmed local farmers and markets in Africa, “connectivity aid” could similarly destroy the evolution of local content, local innovation and local alternatives.

This is an interesting point, though it bears noting that approaches to food aid have evolved, and in any event, research on its impact has reached diverse conclusions. It is however a legitimate question whether "connectivity aid" would be a simple "Pareto improvement" (some gain, no one else loses) for the societies receiving it.

The impact of free internet on soft access and local(ized) content is another interesting unknown. It may cut either way, with the potential for support for languages down the long tail* if the corporations decide (perhaps in facilitating work of local initiatives?), or for an economic decision on their part to limit focus to languages at the head of the tail (i.e., the ones the most spoken). For some languages at least, this might become somewhat complicated if you take into consideration the technical and content dimensions that must be managed (note those bulleted under "Current issues and potential in soft access," above). For languages that lack standard orthography and/or have high dialectal differences without one dialect being accepted as a standard variety, a free internet operation would probably not be well placed to engage the issues necessary to have - so I imagine there could be a risk of corporate sponsors deciding to limit commitments in this area.

More on "access"

All that said, there's more to the topic of access. The physical/soft distinction is a useful but basic one. In African Languages in a Digital Age I discuss this matter in more depth (although with reference more to computers than mobile devices), including reference to one organization that disaggregated 12 dimensions of "real access."

A factor related to soft access is user skills (which may include basic literacy, computer literacy, experience with other technology), and there is some trade-off between the two, in that greater user skills require less attention to soft access, whereas lower user skills require greater attention to soft access by those providing physical access/internet access.

Soft access is not so much an issue for those of us speaking dominant languages, and who have a lot of computer experience. Another aspect of interaction with devices that normally wouldn't affect access - the quality of user experience - may get more attention in this case.

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* The distribution of languages spoken in a society is always asymptotic. See earlier discussions on the long tail of languages.

Thoughts on linking L10n and ICT4D in Africa

It is striking that in Africa - multilingual as it is - discussions of uses of information and communication technology (ICT) for development (ICT4D) generally pay little attention to how one might optimally adapt the technology and the content to national linguistic realities. There are explanations for this, including for example:

• An outward-looking focus on the internet as way to tap international markets and knowledge (contrasted with a relatively limited local market for internet content, although that is changing somewhat with increased access to smart mobile devices)
• The roles of English / French / Portuguese as official languages, and higher status of these Europhone languages relative to African languages
• Attitudes about language (the notion that African languages are not adapted to science or technology, the impression that there are too many African languages to deal with)
• Issues relating to the written form of languages (in some cases lacking or not standardized, or standard orthographies may not be widely taught; computer systems from abroad may not have fonts for the alphabets used to write the languages)

However, explicit attention to potential uses of the first languages and local lingua francas in ICTs could address such issues and lead to various benefits: some in areas on which traditional ICT and ICT4D policies focus (such as enhancing user skills in ICTs; increasing relevant web content); and some in other areas important to development that fall outside the usual ICT discussions (language development, links with indigenous knowledge, new kinds of creativity).

Discussions of localization (L10n) and multilingual computing in the context of ICTs for national development could be built around several themes, such as:

1. Dialogue between ICT policy and language policy processes. There is apparently little overlap between ICT policy and language policy in most countries of Africa, hence little institutional support for discussion of "localization policy" or, as it is called in some Asian countries, "local language computing policy." This structural divide can go all the way down to the level of computer technicians and linguists. Bringing together discussions of language policy and planning, and education policy as regards languages on the one hand, and ICT policy as concerns expansion of use of the technologies and their contribution to development on the other, could yield some new insights and foster collaborations among efforts to promote ICT4D and develop languages.
2. Approaching localization as a way of adding value to the impact and potential of ICT for national development. Localization is not about replacing one language with another, of course, but rather adding diverse language capacities and content to computer systems and the way we use them. ICT is in many ways inherently additive or positive sum - adding one more option in terms of language interface or content need not take away from another, but rather adds to the benefits potential users can get out of ICT, and what they can use the technology to accomplish. In a multilingual context, promoting ways of enhancing language capacities of computer systems (localizing software, developing tools to make that possible) and increasing diverse language content (through localizing content and creating local content) are relatively inexpensive ways of giving ICT more dimensions, (soft) access points, and meaning - hence value.
3. Linking with broadcast technologies. Broadcast media - the older forms of "ICTs" in effect - have been "localized" from the beginning, so the interface with technology that is not localized will be limited. Localization of web content about important topics in health and livelihoods, for example, could be used directly by community radio stations, without the need for locally (and potentially inaccurately) translating that information.
4. Leveraging the benefits of internationalization of ICT and of language technology for Africa. A lot of work has been going into making computer systems and software more able to handle diverse languages and scripts: Unicode's accommodation of all writing systems; tools to develop language resources (from keyboards to corpora); open-source opportunities for localization; research on advanced applications (such as computer assisted translation), etc. Multilingual Africa stands to benefit a lot from these advances (and contribute in turn to them), but it has not, on official levels, been systematically seeking either to take advantage of the opportunities or to place itself in a position to participate more fully in the future (e.g., training of computer technicians in aspects of language technologies). There are some initiatives on NGO, academic, or project levels, but official support has in most countries appears to be minimal. This is an area that ICT policy can address.

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(Adapted from a message to the Afrik-IT list entitled "Re: Ghana and other open access network model and SAT3," 23 August 2007. This blog entry was originally posted on 30 September 2015 and inadvertently deleted.)

Hausa on the international radio websites

Some of the earliest and longest running use of Hausa on the internet is on websites associated with the Hausa services of the shortwave radio stations of five countries: UK (BBC); US (VOA); Germany (RDW); China (CRI); and France (RFI). This post looks at how they treat Hausa text with regard to the standard "Boko" orthography, and what the implications are of the choices they make.

Background

The Hausa language, as written with the Latin-based Boko alphabet, includes several "hooked" characters that represent sounds not part of English or French, and which affect pronunciation and meaning as much as accents do in many European languages. These are: ɓ ; ɗ ; ƙ ; and in Niger, ƴ - in Nigeria 'y is written for the same sound. The capital letter forms of the four hooked letters are Ɓ Ɗ Ƙ Ƴ.

There is a fair amount written and even published using this alphabet, which largely (but not completely) supplanted the Arabic-based "Ajami" beginning in the colonial period in Nigeria. It later influenced discussions on standardizing African alphabets (more on that in a previous post).

The advent of personal computers and then the internet, which relied on the ASCII standard (basically the English alphabet) and then 8-bit encodings that supported a slightly wider range of languages but were not intercompatible, hampered use of alphabets like those of Hausa. (There had been some typewriter solutions for such alphabets, so in this sense one could argue that information technology was at first a step back for some languages.)

It was during this trough before Unicode became widely used - which would enable full use of extended Latin characters such as the hooked letters (as well as other writing systems) - that the Hausa services of the shortwave radio operations of the BBC, VOA, and RDW started putting Hausa language content online. BBC World Service had Hausa online by 2000 if not earlier, and VOA and RDW by 2002. The only practical option in an environment where computer systems used by many people were not Unicode "aware" was to use an "ASCIIfied" transcription of Hausa (substituting ɓ with b, ɗ with d, ƙ with k, and ƴ or 'y with y).

CRI's Hausa service had a web presence by 2006, and RFI inaugurated its Hausa service both on the air and on the internet in 2007.

Evolution of treatment of Hausa text on some sites

I first started informally tracking how these sites presented Hausa in 2006 (before RFI began its Hausa service), and in 2007 noted that all five operations used ASCIIfied transcriptions. The blog Hausa Online in 2006 made the same observation about VOA, but found that on the RDW site, "[t]he hooked letters ƙ ɓ ɗ are used in some, but unfortunately not in all cases."

In 2009 I took another look at BBC (still ASCIIfied, and noted page encoding was iso-8859-1, not utf-8 - in other words, not anticipating Unicode), and VOA (also still ASCII, and noted that although the page encodings were utf-8, the language parameters were "lang=en", i.e., English not "lang=ha", Hausa). It is of interest to note here that a 2010 report done by Kantar Media for BBC entitled "Qualitative research on the BBC Hausa Service" had little to say about the website, and in fact didn't ask specifically about the quality of the web content in Hausa (the natural focus on aspects of the radio broadcasts did not seem to be fully complemented with attention to aspects of the web presentation).

By 2013, RDW seemed to be using the Boko orthography to a large degree, and VOA somewhat; the others were still ASCII.

The international shortwave radio websites today

On 9 September and again earlier today, I took another look at the websites of these five Hausa radio services, with these observations:

• Deutsche Welle (or RDW) http://www.dw.com/ha/ Appears to be the best with Hausa text (seems to use the correct orthography with extended characters where appropriate most or all the time). Uses lang=ha (though not clear why only in the battery of commands for Internet Explorer). Uses charset=utf-8. A search on "ɗaya" ("one") correctly returned results with "ɗaya"
• Voice of America (VOA) http://www.voahausa.com/ Appears to be inconsistent with orthography. Uses lang=ha and charset=utf-8. A search on "ɗaya" ("one") correctly returned results with "ɗaya"
• Radio France Internationale (RFI) http://ha.rfi.fr/ Appears to be inconsistent with orthography. Uses lang=ha and charset=utf-8. A search on "ɗaya" ("one") returned results with "ɗaya" along with "Haya" for some reason
• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) http://www.bbc.com/hausa Appears not to use the extended characters at all (though it does use 'y which is the Nigerian equivalent of what in Niger and other countries is ƴ ). Uses lang=ha and charset=utf-8. A search on "ɗaya" ("one") returned results that ignored the letter "ɗ" as if the search term were "aya"
• China Radio International (CRI) http://hausa.cri.cn/ Appears not to use the extended characters at all. No lang= parameter at all. Uses charset=utf-8, except for a use of charset=iso-8859-1 in search, which returns confused results on searches with extended Latin.

Since this is the result of a quick review, with no extensive or statistical pretensions, I can only offer a subjective impression including the above, and the tentative conclusion that RFI, at least, has improved in its use of the Boko orthography since 2013. It may be that RDW and VOA have also improved but I can't measure that. It does not seem that either BBC or RCI have improved at all in this regard.

BBC and VOA did correct page parameter issues noted in 2009. In fact, all five are good with the charset=utf-8 parameter, with the exception of CRI's search page, and all but CRI have the correct lang=ha parameter.

Implications and recommendations

I still think that promulgation of ASCIIfied Hausa (not using the extended characters of the Hausa Boko orthography) will negatively affect the quality of corpora drawing on these resources, with secondary effects on development of terminologies and applications.

For whatever reason, two resources online that I recently learned of are inconsistent in their use of Hausa orthography (some Boko, some ASCIIfied): Microsoft Language Portal's Hausa terminology updated for Windows 10; and ImTranslator.net 's English-Hausa and Hausa-English online translation utility. Could it be that persistent use of ASCIIfied Hausa text on websites like some of those discussed above is getting picked up in corpora?

Another negative outcome of continued use of ASCIIfied Hausa would be the impact on maintaining a quality written standard for education. Since the language has a standard orthography, it would behoove foreign entities to adhere to it, especially as the earlier technical barriers have fallen.

It would be useful in the meantime - and for that matter in the long run as well - to develop an app to "Boko-ify" Hausa text in ASCII.

#acentúate & #ɓɗƙƴ

Noting the current publicity campaign for using accent marks in various European languages, which has a hashtag on Twitter of #acentúate, might a similar approach help for raising awareness online about Hausa orthography? Maybe something like #ɓɗƙƴ?

#Twitter: Las etiquetas pueden usar tildes #Acentúate. https://t.co/Vyh9nn4dPw pic.twitter.com/leo9I7IxXT

— UEES Online (@uees_online) September 18, 2015

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(Some items mentioned in this post appeared on the Hausa charsets and keyboards message board.)

The Casablanca Statement in Tifinagh

In the previous entry, I posted the English and French originals of the 2005 Casablanca Statement on localization in Africa, plus translations in Arabic, N'Ko, and Portuguese. Since then, I found the Amazight (Berber) translation, which was provided in Tifinagh script. It is included below as an image file (the text was in a pre-Unicode font).

I have also retrieved a backup version of the PanAfrican L10n wiki, and am working on getting it into presentable form on a provisional location before making it public. The wiki was started just before the Casablanca meeting a little over 10 years ago, and was developed under the PAL and ANLoc projects before going offline with the ANLoc site in late 2013.

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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.