African Languages in a Digital Age
November 11, 2016 7:19 AM Subscribe
Challenges and opportunities for indigenous language computing
Localisation is a new and growing field of inquiry. This book identifies issues, concerns, priorities, and lines of research and is intended as a baseline study in defining localisation in Africa
*single link full book
Hah. That is super interesting, but there is no way I'm going to be able to RTFA and then comment before this slips off the front page!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:58 AM on November 11, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:58 AM on November 11, 2016
You'd think we'd solved all localization problems by now but I guess culture and tech are always evolving. Good that there's stuff left to do.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:19 AM on November 11, 2016
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:19 AM on November 11, 2016
Code talkers?
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:21 AM on November 11, 2016
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:21 AM on November 11, 2016
This is immediately relevant to my interests. Favorited!
(And it's a little amusing that the summary page is presenting with Unicode placeholders for some punctuation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
posted by ardgedee at 8:28 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
(And it's a little amusing that the summary page is presenting with Unicode placeholders for some punctuation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
posted by ardgedee at 8:28 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I heard that one of the problems with localising desktop computer UIs to one particular African language (I can't remember which one) was that this language had no word for “window”, due to the local vernacular architecture never having made use of windows, so they had to come up with an entirely new metaphor for rectangular screen areas.
posted by acb at 9:25 AM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by acb at 9:25 AM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
Article from BBC in 2000
In the chat rooms, says Mr Bwana, Swahili surfers can now discuss the newest words on the streets and online, and "these online contributions can form the basis for a new technology-based Swahili".
I know how the story of mtandao came to mean the internet, it's already being handed down from the "good old days"
acb, I know that story, I think it was a West African language. I will keep looking, right now my google fu is drowning in manufactured quicksand
posted by infini at 10:15 AM on November 11, 2016
In the chat rooms, says Mr Bwana, Swahili surfers can now discuss the newest words on the streets and online, and "these online contributions can form the basis for a new technology-based Swahili".
I know how the story of mtandao came to mean the internet, it's already being handed down from the "good old days"
acb, I know that story, I think it was a West African language. I will keep looking, right now my google fu is drowning in manufactured quicksand
posted by infini at 10:15 AM on November 11, 2016
I heard that one of the problems with localising desktop computer UIs to one particular African language (I can't remember which one) was that this language had no word for “window”, due to the local vernacular architecture never having made use of windows
I certainly believe that a language would have no non-borrowed word for window, as many don't, but my eyebrow is arching at this anecdote's suggestion that speakers of that language never have to talk about windows. I feel like some of these language-related urban legends make pretty hilarious assumptions about the way humans actually do life.
posted by zokni at 10:19 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I certainly believe that a language would have no non-borrowed word for window, as many don't, but my eyebrow is arching at this anecdote's suggestion that speakers of that language never have to talk about windows. I feel like some of these language-related urban legends make pretty hilarious assumptions about the way humans actually do life.
posted by zokni at 10:19 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
According to a cursory Google search, it was Igbo, and the word they use to talk about actual windows means "opening" in general.
posted by protondonor at 10:23 AM on November 11, 2016
posted by protondonor at 10:23 AM on November 11, 2016
Tell me your keywords
posted by infini at 10:51 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 10:51 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I guess it just bothers me how interesting situations get boiled down to factoids. I'm sure Igbo localization of tech terms has a million fascinating aspects to it, but making it seem like 25 million speakers in a country with one of the largest urban areas in the world have never had occasion to talk about windows before is pretty reductive. (I'm not pointing an accusatory finger at acb, as I'm sure they passed on the anecdote as they heard it, though I would love if we all thought more about the narratives we pass on.)
posted by zokni at 11:18 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zokni at 11:18 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
"no word for window". The source I got it from was a PDF called "Verbal Intercultural Communication," chapter seven of a larger work I couldn't identify from the PDF itself.
posted by protondonor at 11:19 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by protondonor at 11:19 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I work for a software company and actually am informally in charge of getting the basic string localization for Standard American English in place (as opposed to the CamelCaseOfTheDamned the programmers use).
(If you're not familiar with the concept, no portion of the program has a label directly baked into it. Instead there's a placeholder to an entry in a dictionary file which is referenced in combination with the language selected by the user. When a screen opens, it's labelled on the fly. This is problematic for many languages, such as those that use right-to-left scripts, but at least suffices for languages written in Latin or Cyrillic script.)
The thing is, while the capability exists, we don't use it to deal with any language except American English due to a lack of resources. So I'm skeptical about any solution proposed regardless of technical flair simply because I don't know that any but the largest software houses will have the personnel to implement them. We're running flat out as it is, and that's pretty much the standard in the industry from what I hear. Money isno the object.
It would be nice, though.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:28 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
(If you're not familiar with the concept, no portion of the program has a label directly baked into it. Instead there's a placeholder to an entry in a dictionary file which is referenced in combination with the language selected by the user. When a screen opens, it's labelled on the fly. This is problematic for many languages, such as those that use right-to-left scripts, but at least suffices for languages written in Latin or Cyrillic script.)
The thing is, while the capability exists, we don't use it to deal with any language except American English due to a lack of resources. So I'm skeptical about any solution proposed regardless of technical flair simply because I don't know that any but the largest software houses will have the personnel to implement them. We're running flat out as it is, and that's pretty much the standard in the industry from what I hear. Money is
It would be nice, though.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:28 AM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
"no word for window".
If they can talk about windows, they have a word for windows. It's like saying English speakers have no word for pasta.
posted by zokni at 11:31 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
If they can talk about windows, they have a word for windows. It's like saying English speakers have no word for pasta.
posted by zokni at 11:31 AM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
protondonor, there's a pdf online for the googling at anthropology.msu.edu
(slow download)
posted by spbmp at 11:33 AM on November 11, 2016
(slow download)
posted by spbmp at 11:33 AM on November 11, 2016
Didn't you know that northern peoples have over 22 trillion words for snow? That's why it's impossible to talk about Edward Snowden with them.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:05 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 12:05 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
If they can talk about windows, they have a word for windows. It's like saying English speakers have no word for pasta.
It does potentially make literal translation of "window" not the best choice and windows not the best metaphor. However I'm not sure it's that hard to come up with alternatives. Page, slate, canvas - your writing or drawing surface of choice?
posted by atoxyl at 3:16 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
It does potentially make literal translation of "window" not the best choice and windows not the best metaphor. However I'm not sure it's that hard to come up with alternatives. Page, slate, canvas - your writing or drawing surface of choice?
posted by atoxyl at 3:16 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
If they can talk about windows, they have a word for windows.
This is really not true. Irish has no word for "have," for instance, but Irish speakers can talk about having things by saying something like "the thing is at/with me." I don't speak Igbo, but I suspect that they can talk about there being "a window" somewhere just fine by using the full resources of their language, but that's not the same as there being a specific, well-defined count noun that works like English "window." As a result of (surprisingly common) linguistic mismatches like these, localization becomes more like total rewriting than substituting.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 3:58 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
This is really not true. Irish has no word for "have," for instance, but Irish speakers can talk about having things by saying something like "the thing is at/with me." I don't speak Igbo, but I suspect that they can talk about there being "a window" somewhere just fine by using the full resources of their language, but that's not the same as there being a specific, well-defined count noun that works like English "window." As a result of (surprisingly common) linguistic mismatches like these, localization becomes more like total rewriting than substituting.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 3:58 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't speak Igbo but I'm pretty sure they can talk about windows by saying mpio. The problem would be that the connotation of the word mpio is that of a hole or opening, so telling an Igbo speaker to press a button on this window would make about as much sense as telling an English speaker to click on the hole in their screen. (This is just spitballing based on information from the one PDF linked above.)
posted by protondonor at 4:27 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by protondonor at 4:27 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Your general point is fair, Harvey Kilobit; I overstated. But I would be extremely extremely surprised if the way an Igbo speaker refers to a window is not some type of noun phrase.
posted by zokni at 4:28 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zokni at 4:28 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
The problem would be that the connotation of the word mpio is that of a hole or opening, so telling an Igbo speaker to press a button on this window would make about as much sense as telling an English speaker to click on the hole in their screen.
Hmm, interesting-- this doesn't seem like a problem to me personally, because the idea of clicking on a hole makes no more or less sense to me than the idea of clicking on an actual window. In fact, I've never consciously connected a computer window to an architectural window until this conversation. I'm probably an outlier there though...
posted by zokni at 4:32 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hmm, interesting-- this doesn't seem like a problem to me personally, because the idea of clicking on a hole makes no more or less sense to me than the idea of clicking on an actual window. In fact, I've never consciously connected a computer window to an architectural window until this conversation. I'm probably an outlier there though...
posted by zokni at 4:32 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ta fuinneog agam, even, I have a window in Irish. Obviously the signifiers 'opening' in Igbo fuctionally fills window + other spaces, the point about localisation and translation in general is the potential to shape the way many will view and understand things going forward. It must be a total power trip to make some of these decisions.
posted by Wilder at 12:14 AM on November 12, 2016
posted by Wilder at 12:14 AM on November 12, 2016
The issue isn't with thinking that they have word that is a good match for the English "window." The issue is with the explanation--that they are unfamiliar with windows. It may not be intended that way, but it reflects many just-so stories about the languages of "others," especially those popularly considered "primitive" or "exotic."
Sometimes the explanations turn out to be true. People generally do not have words for completely unfamiliar concepts. But Igbo speakers have complex traditional architecture that includes windows, and many of them live in of the biggest cities in the world. If they don't have a word for "window," it's not because they're unfamiliar with windows. It's because they've chopped up the conceptual space differently.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, sometimes differences in vocabulary reflect actual cultural differences, but people often exaggerate, especially in ways that are problematic.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:02 AM on November 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sometimes the explanations turn out to be true. People generally do not have words for completely unfamiliar concepts. But Igbo speakers have complex traditional architecture that includes windows, and many of them live in of the biggest cities in the world. If they don't have a word for "window," it's not because they're unfamiliar with windows. It's because they've chopped up the conceptual space differently.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, sometimes differences in vocabulary reflect actual cultural differences, but people often exaggerate, especially in ways that are problematic.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:02 AM on November 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
Let's just say the notion that if there exists a translation from a sequence of letters making up an English word and a sequence of letters in a non-English language, it follows that the translation is suitable for all possible uses of that English word, is a very American idea :-)
posted by effbot at 6:53 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by effbot at 6:53 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
Kutsuwamushi, you're probably entirely correct here. "Chopp[ing] up the conceptual space differently" is usually the source of major semantic differences between languages, when it comes to basic vocabulary and not, e.g. specialized technical vocabulary or vocabulary relating to the realia of a specific environment. "No word for X" usually is somewhere between an exaggeration and completely unfounded. (For that matter, so is "[large number] words for X".)
posted by protondonor at 6:52 PM on November 12, 2016
posted by protondonor at 6:52 PM on November 12, 2016
As far as I can tell, no one has claimed that, effbot. I see zokni questioning the just-so story of Igbo having no word for windows because traditional Igbo architecture doesn't have them, and I'm criticizing the "no word for X" trope more generally.
I'm a linguist who does work in West Africa. I'm currently working on a grammar and dictionary for a language that also has no native word for "window," and it is certainly not because the speakers have no need to talk about windows. In this case, they use the borrowed French word "fenetiri." But that doesn't mean that their traditional architecture had no windows; it does have them. I suspect "fenetiri" was used to describe windows made with modern industrial materials, and expanded its domain from there, but I don't really know because there's no record of the language before colonialization. That's just a likely borrowing path.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:44 AM on November 13, 2016
I'm a linguist who does work in West Africa. I'm currently working on a grammar and dictionary for a language that also has no native word for "window," and it is certainly not because the speakers have no need to talk about windows. In this case, they use the borrowed French word "fenetiri." But that doesn't mean that their traditional architecture had no windows; it does have them. I suspect "fenetiri" was used to describe windows made with modern industrial materials, and expanded its domain from there, but I don't really know because there's no record of the language before colonialization. That's just a likely borrowing path.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:44 AM on November 13, 2016
Hey, I cannot help that you folks derailed away from the computer interface localisation topic :-)
I work with localisation (for a very global product, you may have used it) and the "you mean this translation of English word X won't work here, it worked there?" scenario isn't that uncommon.
(as for no native words, it's perfectly possible that there are five native words that can be used to talk about windows, but all of those will look stupid to a native speaker if you use them on a computer screen...)
posted by effbot at 6:06 PM on November 16, 2016
I work with localisation (for a very global product, you may have used it) and the "you mean this translation of English word X won't work here, it worked there?" scenario isn't that uncommon.
(as for no native words, it's perfectly possible that there are five native words that can be used to talk about windows, but all of those will look stupid to a native speaker if you use them on a computer screen...)
posted by effbot at 6:06 PM on November 16, 2016
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posted by y2karl at 7:43 AM on November 11, 2016