Written by Don Osborn Edited by MARTINS
LIBRARY
I. Introduction
Discussion of the “digital divide” –
the uneven distribution of computers and internet in favor of certain regions
and groups – has become a commonplace in the discourse on global expansion of
the “information society.”
Africa, by and large, is considered to be on the
disfavored side of the divide. Various statistics like low numbers of telephone
connections, lack of electrification and high illiteracy have long
characterized the continent, and now are joined, unsurprisingly, by low
indicators for connectivity and access to internet and computers. Most of the
focus in this context has been on the technical aspects of the divide, not ably
connectivity and access, but the linguistic dimensions of the proverbial divide
receive less substantive attention. This is a critical concern in societies
such as those in Africa where the majority of the populations are not only on
the wrong side of the digital divide, but also on the disfavored side of
linguistic divides that favor the former colonial languages that are also among
those dominant in computer and internet. This paper suggests that facilitating
the use of African languages in information and communications
technologies (ICT) is essential to addressing the digital divide on the continent,
and suggests focus on two overlapping areas: content and tools. In the following
I will discuss these issues and several examples that highlight the above mentioned
dimensions.
II. African Languages and ICT: On the
Periphery of the Information Society
A. Importance of the Issue
There are several reasons why
African language use on computers and the internet is of interest.1)So long as a language is spoken and used in
other spheres of activity, it is assumed that it is worth at least
providing the opportunity for it to be used in various ways with computer and
internet technologies. This thinking could be either framed in terms of
“linguistic rights” or taken simply as a practical observation that opportunities
for expression and learning are favored by providing means to work with a
powerful technology in one’s first language.2)Such
an opportunity becomes a critical concern since African languages are themselves
important vehicles for the communication and creation of knowledge, but there
is little organized educational activity beyond small-scale programs for
adult basic literacy and a limited amount of first language instruction at
the primary school level in some countries. ICT in African languages could be
important in post-literacy and in dissemination and generation of knowledge.
1) African
languages here will be defined as those languages indigenous to the continent
south of the Sahara and for which there is not a primary cultural center in
another region.
2) ICT
is used here mainly in the narrower sense of computers and the internet. In
wider usage it can also cover radio, telephones, and other electronic media.
3) Lack
of multilingual capacities on computers and the internet in Africa effectively limits
many people’s access to full use of the technology. This is a broader
definition of access than that commonly used in discussions of the digital
divide.
4) Reliance almost exclusively on English, French,
and Portuguese for the transmission of
information and new knowledge (see Enguehard and Mbodj 2003) puts people who
are not skilled in these languages, and arguably the societies of which they
are a part, at a disadvantage.
5) The issue certainly goes further, as it is
legitimate to ask what sort of future there is for
languages that are not used actively in ICT .In the following, the current
state of African languages and ICT is briefly surveyed and reasons for their
not being more used are examined.
B. Brief Overview of the Current State of African Languages
and ICT
The relative level of use of African
languages in computing and on the internet is hard to quantify but important to
at least characterize. To begin with, it is clear that African languages are
not yet widely used in the content of computing applications or on the internet.
We can deduce this for instance from the very small amount of software localized
even for major African languages and the infrequence and character of such web
content as one does find in African languages. This situation obviously arises
from the underlying sociolinguistic, language policy, and educational contexts,
though in this paper these will not be explored in depth. However, it is worth
noting that computers and the internet, like formal educational systems a century
earlier, have been introduced and disseminated as more or less mono lingual media
using one or another European language. This is a reflection of both the
dominance of the languages inherited from colonization in ICT and the use of
these languages by those people in Africa most likely to have access to the
technology. A quick overview of web content, use in e-mail, and use in other
aspects of computing(including in non-internet applications and in localization
of software), helps to elucidate the situation.
The Web
African languages are represented on
the web, but not prominently as media of communication. There are few
surveys that document this. A study by Diki-Kidiri and Edema (2003) did find a
significant number of sites that treat African languages in one way or another,
but these generally have minimal content in the languages themselves. A large
proportion consists of sites about African languages, including online
dictionaries
There are some sources that describe
multiple definitions of access. For instance, Telecommons (2000)discusses
“‘physical access’ to ICT infrastructure and applications, and ‘soft access,’
which we define as software and applications which are designed to enable rural
African users to utilize ICTs for their own needs and uses once the physical
access has been established.” The organization Bridges.org goes further to define
twelve dimensions of what it calls “real access,” of which “relevant content”
mentions language.
African Languages and Information and
Communication Technology (ICT): Key Elements for the Future
Paper to be presented at the Fourth Conference on Preserving
African Languages, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore, Salisbury,
MD Nov. 4-7, 2004Donald Z. Osborn, Ph.D.
Director, Bisharat, Ltd. and Instructor, Chengdu
University of Technology, Chengdu, China