tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63358612026-03-01T16:14:07.237-05:00African languages and the "information society": Reflections on multilingual ICT, mother-tongue and bilingual education, and uses of Africa's first languages in extension, development, and research.Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-8176644226468357072026-01-10T23:58:00.005-05:002026-01-13T00:28:15.057-05:00

Arabic, of course has long been established in Africa, notably as the mother tongue and heritage language of many people in the northern part of the continent, and as the language of Islam, which a great many Africans follow. I was not, however, thinking in terms of its African usage - or Africa at all, really - when I first got the idea of learning Arabic. In any event, this interest ultimately

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-52139939061226194872025-12-29T12:35:00.037-05:002025-12-30T09:00:56.230-05:00

African languages map by Steven Huffman via VividMapsOccasionally, over the years, I have been asked why I devoted such attention to African languages professionally and academically.The short answer was always their importance for development communication and cultural understanding in Africa. The application of technology to African languages followed logically from that. These are, of

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-12189753091462912432025-12-28T22:59:00.001-05:002025-12-28T23:07:18.020-05:00

NW angle on Djenné mosque; Palais de Justice in foreground, 1983 As the kind readers of Beyond Niamey will have noticed, I've been publishing much less frequently since the end of 2017. There are several reasons for this. I offered short takes on why in late 2020 ("A sabbatical, of sorts") and late 2023 ("Hiatus in writing here"), but I always intended to offer a more complete

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-65298473608035661922024-01-15T19:23:00.000-05:002024-01-15T19:23:48.675-05:00

On this 20th anniversary of the first post on Beyond Niamey, I thought I'd present a chronological list of all 242 posts since then and prior to this one. That total averages out to be one post a month, but the actual pace varied a lot over the years.This blog is fully searchable and posts are tagged, however, there wasn't an easy way to browse the titles. Most archiving features and derived

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-17924699424502545462024-01-15T11:46:00.001-05:002024-01-15T11:49:18.068-05:00

"AfricanLanguages" was a Yahoo! Group on which was posted a lot of material about languages in Africa, including popular press articles from around the continent. A browsable and searchable subset of the message archives, including ~800 messages from 11 September 2004 through 31 August 2013, is available on Mail-archive.com.I personally did a fair amount of posting on AfricanLanguages, including

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-11629120802611918122023-12-31T23:59:00.002-05:002024-01-07T10:39:24.689-05:00

For several reasons I've been inactive on this blog and in general as regards work on African languages and technology. There's no problem - happily - but part of my thinking has to do with the relevance of what I was doing as a new generation of people interested in African languages takes the fore.I also wanted to take time to change up and focus on some different work - notably with regard to

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-2163622930356349652022-02-22T23:35:00.264-05:002022-02-23T10:59:36.510-05:00

Today, 22 February 2022, has been announced as the first Global Language Advocacy Day (GLAD22) by the Global Coalition for Language Rights (GCLR). I only learned of it yesterday, which was International Mother Language Day (IMLD), so have only some first impressions to offer. I'll share those below along with some quick thoughts on advocacy.First, I think it is great to have another day after

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-691597019747875292022-02-21T13:48:00.001-05:002022-02-21T13:49:49.431-05:00

Source: IMLD2022 social media pack. (Yes, the laptop graphic issuperposed on the photo)The theme of the 2022 edition of International Mother Language Day (21 February) is "Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities." According to UNESCO's homepage for IMLD 2022, the focus of this year's observation is "the potential role of technology to advance multilingual

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-64209638613060216922021-12-31T18:50:00.000-05:002021-12-31T18:50:40.364-05:00

Just a quick signal at the end of 2021 to say that I hope to resume posting here intermittently in 2022, which also will be the first year of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL).The place of African languages among indigenous or autochthonous languages - whether all of the first languages of the continent are included, or only some, and by what criteria - seems to me to still

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-61326142128361855602021-02-21T23:55:00.000-05:002021-02-22T00:16:23.022-05:00

This year's International Mother Language Day (IMLD, 21 February 2021) has as its theme, "Fostering multilingualism for inclusion in education and society." Of the key terms in this expression, most need little if any explanation. But the meaning of one of them - inclusion - merits attention.When we speak of - or speak - mother tongues and second (or additional) languages, as individuals,

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-36304619648428086132020-12-31T17:59:00.004-05:002020-12-31T23:17:53.347-05:00

The year 2020 has been a kind of Pandora's box of chickens coming home to roost. Unexpected in particulars, but not altogether unpredictable in terms of the kinds of problems we've seen. The COVID pandemic in particular has caused suffering and death, and then grief in the wake of those losses.Against that backdrop - and thankful that my family and I have personally escaped the worst (Yerkoy

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-52949816005087921062020-02-21T13:43:00.000-05:002020-02-21T13:45:09.073-05:00

The theme of this year's International Mother Language Day (IMLD2020; 21 February 2020) - "Languages without borders" - seems especially appropriate for Africa. So many (almost all?) African languages - or more accurately, populations having a common mother tongue - are divided by borders established during the colonial period (and prudently maintained in the interests of peace). And people on

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-30050210944315098822019-12-28T16:30:00.000-05:002019-12-28T17:03:55.579-05:00

Quick post to call attention to an upcoming workshop on machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) in African languages, and its call for participation. Also a list of related initiatives, including the Machine Learning and Data Science in Africa (MLDS Africa) forum. AfricaNLP2020 workshop - "Unlocking Local Languages" The AfricaNLP2020 workshop will be held on 26 April

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-59199507493651484422019-12-16T23:25:00.000-05:002019-12-16T23:25:57.924-05:00

u A quick follow-up to my previous message regarding the deletion of Yahoo Groups. In brief, the saga is still ongoing. This message will provide an update and mention other Africa - and especially African language - related groups (as maybe a missing dimension in this saga). I've spent what time I could on the matter of saving the content of several groups of interest mentioned in the

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-77688868712750709142019-10-31T13:33:00.000-04:002019-10-31T13:33:22.525-04:00

Yahoo's decision earlier this month to cease hosting user-created content and archives of its Yahoo! Groups appears to mean a loss of another sliver of internet history, including substantive discussions about African languages. At a time when technology is being used to collect data in massive amounts, even on trivial matters, this seems hard to justify in the way it is being done, even if

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-37321630362373123582019-08-20T14:59:00.001-04:002019-08-20T14:59:46.118-04:00

In the previous post, "African languages as indigenous languages: Definitions," I looked at ways the term/concept "indigenous language" is defined and used (officially), and how those might apply in Africa. This post will look at how "indigenous language," in one form or another, is used in various contexts relating to Africa. Also, since the context for this discussion is the ongoing

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-76839705980786308642019-08-19T15:55:00.000-04:002019-08-20T15:35:47.384-04:00

As a follow up to the post about the African Regional Meeting for IYIL2019 (30-31 July 2019), I'd like to take a quick look at what "indigenous language" means in Africa. This is a fundamental question, and one of the broader issues regarding the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019) that I mentioned in an earlier post on the Year in Africa. On the one hand, all African

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-75498100589489318402019-07-30T16:28:00.001-04:002019-07-31T10:20:24.424-04:00

The International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019 (IYIL2019) has involved various regional meetings. The African Regional Meeting for IYIL2019 is being held in Addis Ababa on 30-31 July, midway through the year. A Concept Note for the meeting details the purpose, agenda, structures, and participants. I will copy below the statement from the conference webpage (which appears to be almost

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-69699819000842217152019-07-05T23:58:00.001-04:002019-07-06T00:32:53.287-04:00

After another hiatus in posting here, will begin again. More on all that below, but I wanted first to take the opportunity to share a couple of short items relating to my experience with some African languages. "God knows his friends..." I still remember a particular session of Fulfulde instruction in Moribabougou, Mali, back in 1983. As in all Peace Corps language classes - whatever the

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-60152939874428201732019-02-21T13:46:00.000-05:002019-02-21T13:46:19.950-05:00

On this International Mother Language Day 2019 (IMLD 2019), which has as its theme "Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building and reconciliation," a question: What are "indigenous languages" in Africa? The question arises also since we are over a month into the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019), an observation declared by the United Nations General

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-18991780818491386982019-01-06T01:25:00.000-05:002020-04-26T14:04:08.075-04:00

Why does the Voice of America (VOA) Bambara service's web content use a frenchized transcription of Bambara while Radio France International (RFI) uses the Bambara orthography? Screenshot from page on VOA Bambara website. In Bambara orthography: Jamana tigi: Ibrahima Bubakar Keyita ye Sankura foli kɛ ka ɲɛsin jamana denw ma. (Presidential New Year's address to the people of the country) This

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-79217763432074415002018-12-29T13:57:00.000-05:002018-12-29T13:57:17.607-05:00

Last August, I began a set of three posts marking the 40th anniversary of the Niamey 1978 meting on harmonizing African language orthographies, and associating that with the Wikimedia 2018 conference in Cape Town - the first in sub-Saharan Africa. This post concludes the series. The central element of this discussion is the extended Latin alphabet, which is used in the orthographies of many

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-14959560941426886102018-08-31T22:58:00.000-04:002018-08-31T22:58:05.110-04:00

Image adapted from banner on the Yoruba Wikipedia, August 2018 What are the implications of extended Latin characters and combinations for production of digital materials in African languages written with them? The previous post discussed some of the process of seeking to harmonize transcriptions, in which the Niamey 1978 conference and its African Reference Alphabet (ARA) were prominent.

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-43798639513086398722018-08-13T09:45:00.000-04:002018-08-13T09:45:02.524-04:00

Image features the 31 modified letters & diacritic combinations inthe African Reference Alphabet, 1978. (Nor all are currently in use.) The world 40 years ago, when the Meeting of Experts on Transcription and Harmonization of African Languages took place in Niamey, and that of the Wikimania 2018 conference in Cape Town (which ended last month) seem very distant from each other. But

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6335861.post-70227074067831231192018-07-18T12:00:00.001-04:002018-07-18T12:12:42.316-04:00

The 14th annual Wikimedia conference - Wikimania 2018 - starts today, 18 July, in Cape Town, South Africa, and runs through 22 July. It is the second Wikimania to be held on the African continent - the first being at Alexandria, Egypt in 2008 - and the first in Africa south of the Sahara. Here is a quick look from afar at what Wikimania 2018 sessions in the conference program might treat

Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16275678707103038011noreply@blogger.com2