Metaglossia: The Translation World

Google has ramped up its operations significantly in sub-Saharan Africa over the past few years and currently has offices in six countries across the region.

Joseph Mucheru, Google Kenya country manager
Some of the services Google has rolled out in the region include: the Google Apps Supporting Programs (GASP), which facilitate online learning through Google; Wazi WiFi in Kenya that provides high-speed wireless internet at a low-cost; and a TV White Spaces pilot in South Africa, which covers large areas with broadband.
In addition, YouTube is available in a number of African languages such as East Africa’s Swahili, Ethiopia’s Amharic and South Africa’s IsiZulu and Afrikaans. Google has even launched a virtual Amharic keyboard which allows Ethiopians to search for and upload videos containing Ethiopic text, eliminating a real barrier to broadcasting themselves.
Google Trader, a free classifieds service that allows users to buy and sell products and search for jobs, has been launched in a number of African countries. Users without internet access can also post items and search for deals by sending an SMS to a special short code.
Others Google services include the recently launched Gmail SMS, Maps and Google+ in Swahili, Amharic, Afrikaans and IsiZulu. Google Baraza (which means “council” in Swahili) allows people in countries across the continent to share knowledge with each other by asking questions and posting answers.
Google country manager for Kenya, Joseph Mucheru, told How we made it in Africa that the technology giant is serious about Africa, and its strategy is to get users online by developing an accessible, relevant, vibrant and self-sufficient internet ecosystem. Mucheru pointed out that while the cost of access to internet bandwidth is falling, it still remains high for many Africans.

La référence des sites en langue nationale. Le portail des peuls (Fulbe, Haalpulaar'en) : PULAAGU.COM Toute la culture peule dans ses différents aspects et facettes.

Le groupe Pulaagu annonce la sortie officielle depuis le 5 juin dernier de la version en langue Peule du célèbre navigateur Firefox. Firefox est un logiciel libre de la fondation Mozilla dont le siège se trouve en Californie.

(Agence Ecofin) - Firefox, le navigateur Internet de La fondation Mozilla, vient de s'enrichir d'une version en langue peulhe (pulaar). C'est ce qu'a annoncé, dans un communiqué reçu par l'Agence de presse sénégalaise, l'association Pulaagu, qui œuvre en direction du développement des technologies de l'information et de la communication en peulh.

Selon le président de cette association, Ibrahima Sarr, «c'est le fruit de deux années de travail, de recherches et de tests qui ont permis l’élaboration du projet, avec le soutien financier et technique du Réseau africain de localisation (ANLOC), basé en Afrique du Sud». Ibrahima Sarr a expliqué que «c'est un travail colossal qui a été abattu pour adapter la terminologie web aux différentes variantes du pulaar parlées dans une vingtaine de pays en Afrique».

Le communiqué de l'association Pulaagu précise que Firefox en langue peulhe «permettra aux personnes alphabétisées en pulaar d’optimiser leur expérience dans le web, en utilisant cette version dans une langue qu’ils maîtrisent parfaitement». Le navigateur en pulaar est aussi «disponible en version mobile sous Android, et sous iPhone comme application non-native à cause des restrictions d’Apple».

ONLINE Africa is developing even faster than the new highways of offline Africa. Undersea cables reaching Africa on the Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts, plus innovative mobile-phone providers, have raised internet speeds and slashed prices. In some African markets you can buy a daily dose of internet on a mobile phone for about the cost of a banana (ie, less than ten American cents). This burgeoning connectivity is making Africa faster, cleverer and more transparent in almost everything that it does.

Google can take a lot of the credit. The American search-and-advertising colossus may even be the single biggest private-sector influence on Africa. It is not just that its internet-search and e-mail are transforming Africa. Take maps. Before Google, ordinary Africans struggled to find maps. Military and civilian mapping offices hoarded rolls of colonial-era relics and sold them at inflated prices. By contrast, Google encourages African developers to layer maps with ever more data. In Kenya 31,000 primary schools and 6,900 secondary schools are marked on Google maps. Satellite views even let users see if the schools have built promised new classrooms or water points. Similar initiatives let voters verify local voting figures at election time. Satellite views of traffic jams have also shamed some African cabinets into spending more on city infrastructure.

Google continues to execute its strategy of deepening its brand in Africa. But it is taking it to the next new level. Google is deploying its products in many African languages.

Wikipedia went dark to fight SOPA but its shining bright as a light for mobile users in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA). Wikipedia will be free to use -- without any data usage charges -- for users on Orange's mobile network.