Languages - Africa Karibu - A Virtual Map of Uganda and Africa

 

Languages

"Ugandans rebelled against learning Swahili and resorted to the language of their colonizers. In a way, it is a good thing because it makes them look like they are all educated. Unemployed but educated." (Mazzi Wampamba in The Waiting, The Reporter Trilogy) 

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"Translation is the language of languages, a language through which all languages can talk to one another" - Ngugi wa Thiong'o, RE-MEMBERING AFRICA, p. 74.

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African challenges - The Challenge for Africa

“I call for Africans to rediscover and embrace their linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity, not only so their nation-states can move forward politically and economically, , but so that may heal a psyche wounded by denial of who they really are.” ( page 6)

The Challenge for Africa 
"Because Africa has not had a culture of writing, it has been easy to promote a culture of forgetting". 

"The provincial administration, an agent of oppression and one of the worst holdovers of colonial times, adressed the local people in languages that they did not fully comprehend; the people, either out of politeness or out of fear for their own safety, pretended they understood their new masters and applauded enthusiastically at the end of public speeches." (p.44-45)

"Indeed, one word for "government" in Kiswahili is sirikali, which means a big secret"). (p.90)

Ituika

"ituika, literally translated as "the severance". ...  p. 120

"The last such ituika in the Kikuyu community was to take place between 1925 and 1928, but it remains incomplete. The British colonial authorities, fearing the gathering of a large group of people in one place, cut it short and banned it.

Since the symbols of power were never handed over to the next generation, this signaled the end of the Kikuyu system of self-governance."  p.120

"Ministers are called wabenzi, a Kiswahili term meaning "the people of the Mercedes Benz"; the term has become shorthand for a member of the new African ruling class". p. 123

Matatus: "The cheap, private minivans that, given the generally poor state of public transit, are the main means of transportation for millions of Kenyans" , p.131

"Shamba system: The establishment of monocultures. The situation in Kenya is not helped by the establishment of monocultural plantations of exotic species of trees (a scheme until recently known as the shamba system) As one might imagine, the shamba system worked very well for the colonialists and for the peasant farmers, who were hungry for land to grow crops." P. 243-244

"I am quite literally restoring myself - as, I believe, is every African - because who we are is bound up in the rivers and streams, the trees and the valleys. It is bound up in our languages, rich in aphorisms from the natural world and our fragile and almost forgotten past. We are fighting of our children, and the children of the men and women who grew up with us, and the future generations of other species." P. 287-288

(The Challenge for Africa, Wangari Maathai, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Arrow Books 2009).

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African Languages
African Languages - Decolonise African Languages
African languages to get more bespoke scientific terms

Many words common to science have never been written in African languages. Now, researchers from across Africa are changing that.

Nature website > here/ 

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• Masakhane
  Our Mission: Masakhane is a grassroots organisation whose mission is to strengthen and spur NLP research in African languages, for Africans, by Africans. Despite the fact that 2000 of the world’s languages are African, African languages are barely represented in technology.
  
  The tragic past of colonialism has been devastating for African languages in terms of their support, preservation and integration. This has resulted in technological space that does not understand our names, our cultures, our places, our history.
  
  
  

  
  
  Masakhane roughly translates to “We build together” in isiZulu. Our goal is for Africans to shape and own these technological advances towards human dignity, well-being and equity, through inclusive community building, open participatory research and multidisciplinarity.
  
  
• Masakhane website > here/  

• AfricArXiv  
  The pan-African Open Access Portal
  
  

  
  
  

• Website1 > here/
• Website2 > here/languages/
• Website3 > here/Decolonise Scientific Writing

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The African Academy of Languages (ACALAN)

The African Academy of Languages, ACALAN is the African Union Specialised agency charged with the promotion and development of African languages as a means for fostering continental integration and development. It is headquartered in Bamako, Mali.

The organisation was established in Mali in December 2000 by Presidential Decree as the Mission for the African Academy of Languages (MACALAN). It was transformed into ACALAN in January 2006 and became a specialised institution of the African Union when its statutes were adopted by the Sixth Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

https://au.int/en/african-academy-languages-acalan

Dr. Martin Benjamin Executive Director Kamusi Project International, Switzerland

Trained as an anthropologist with a focus on international aid in Africa. Transitioned to computational linguistics, running Kamusi to develop language technology with a focus on marginalized languages and serving as a delegated emissary for the African Academy of Languages (African Union) for language technology. Side hustle as a content creator, especially regarding AI, language technology, and linguistic equity issues, at http://youtube.com/@pirateprofessor

Kamusi Gold Global Online Living Dictionary https://kamusi.org/

 

Seamless M4T - article and video, by Martin Benjamin
As the hottest summer ever experienced by homo sapiens approached its end at the Meta headquarters in California, the world’s ninth-largest corporation announced a new achievement for cyber sapiens: the introduction of SeamlessM4T — “the first all-in-one multimodal and multilingual AI translation model that allows people to communicate effortlessly through speech and text across different languages.” The technology, they say, supports translation among nearly 100 languages and builds “a universal language translator,” with the firm implication that they have accomplished this feat for the many languages in their quiver. Multilingual.com:

https://multilingual.com/issues/november-2023/not-uyoga-not-translation/

SeamlessM4T - FIRST test of new AI translator from Meta / Facebook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwpkAU2ruQ&t=271s

 

Martin Benjamin youtube pirate professor - Money Talks! Non-lucrative Languages Don't
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5u9TwK3cx0&t=13s 

http://youtube.com/@pirateprofessor

UNIDIVE

About UniDive

The CA21167 COST Action, UniDive, is an interdisciplinary scientific network devoted to universality, diversity and idiosyncrasy in language technology.

Its main objective is to reconcile language diversity with rapid progress in language technology.

It embraces both inter- and intra-language diversity, i.e. a diversity understood both in terms of the differences among the existing languages and of the variety of linguistic phenomena exhibited within a language.

It gathers about 250 interdisciplinary experts (linguists, computational linguists, computer scientists, psycholinguists, and industrials) from almost 40 COST countries (36 of which are COST countries).

https://unidive.lisn.upsaclay.fr/doku.php?id=start

  

COST - Growing ideas through networks

https://www.cost.eu/about/members/

Why do languages like English, French, and Spanish have so many technology resources, while other languages spoken by hundreds of millions are largely shut out and shut up? The Pirate Professor looks at the various ways we categorize languages, to find the underlying feature that separates the Haves from the Have Nots in language technology and resources for the global knowledge economy. For more about the EU action looking into issues of universality, diversity, and idiosyncrasy in (mostly European) languages: http://kamu.si/unidive

MARTIN BENJAMIN kamusi@gmail.com

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• Arabic
  Masha Allah, You see it everywhere on trucks,. link here/ 
  
  
  
• Association of Language Companies in Africa - ALCA
  Mission: To contribute towards building a resilient and thriving language services sector in Africa 
  
  > Linkedin, go here/ 
  > Facebook, go here/
  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
• In different languages, use website > here/
• 
  
• IsiXhosa
  Imbiza: A pot
  
  
• Luganda: Video poem marathon 2023 - Nakisanze Segawa video poem – International Translation Day – indigenous and Silenced Languages
  
  
• Lhukonzo/Kinande
  1,000,000 speakers in Uganda, where the language is called Lhukonzo. 7,000,000 speakers in DCR Congo, where the language is called Kinande
   
• Kiswahili
• Asante Sana: Wishing you good luck
  Duma means darkness 
  Habari: Hello
  
  Harambee: “The practice of Harambees. Harambee is the Kiswahili word for “pulling together”. President Jomo Kenyatta introduced the term in Kenya in 1963 to instill a community spirit and sense of self-reliance and hard work in promoting small-scale local development.“ 
  
  Kwanini?: Why?
  Matatus: "The cheap, private minivans that, given the generally poor state of public transit, are the main means of transportation for millions of Kenyans"
  Masingira: environment
  Mbwana: Sir
  Mzungu Kichaa means crazy white man 
  Nakuru, named after the Kiswahili word for flamingo
  Safari Njema: Wishing you a safe journey
  
  
• Lhukonzo
  Language from Kasese/Uganda
  
  
• Luganda
  Asa Hanu! Come now!
  Chikatongo: Old and worn out
  Ebirungo: A spice
  Fenne: Jack Fruit
  Foreigners Guide to Ugandan Conversation → Here/.
  Jambula: Jambu Fruit
  Kanyunyuzi: A star
  Luganda (Buganda) Phrasebook → Here/. 
  Mutuuke Bulungi: Safe journey
  Ndugo azafari: Keep distance
  
  Ssebo: Sir
  This is Nyamwamba River: Kinu kisaaro kya Nyamwamba!
  Yambala T-shirt: Put on Ugandan cloth!
  
  
  
• Nakisanze Segawa2023/7/28 – About national languages in Africa
  
  https://www.facebook.com/nakisanze.segawa
  
  "Mali drops French as it's official language and makes 13 of its national languages official.  Ekyo kyakabi!  Instead of having multiple  disagreements on adopting  Luganda as the National language,  lets make at least 6 of our native languages official for a start okusinga okukuba abaana mu masomero okuzogera."
  
  I made an interview with Nakisanze Segawa last time I was in Uganda:  Nakisanze Segawa also took part in the PEN International  Video Poem Marathon 2023: 
  
  MAKING SILENCED LANGUAGES VISIBLE - Day 11 Poem 25: Luganda
  Nakisanze Segawa : Zibogola - They Speak! (PEN Uganda) - The Ganda or Luganda language is a Bantu language spoken in the Great Lakes region of Africa. It is the most widely spoken and written indigenous language in Uganda. 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXB6T468MbA  
  
  
• https://www.facebook.com/groups/445752600108416/search/?q=Nakisanze%20Segawa


•  Proggie.ug – A Foreigners Guide to Ugandan Conversations → here/. 
  
  
• Dahomey = Bening