"Within recent years, humanities subjects have felt increasingly threatened by the looming presence of AI. Translators and interpreters are currently experiencing the imminent impact of this technological advancement. Gone are the days of badly translated word-by-word robotic sentences with complete disregard for grammatical nuance. New algorithms are becoming so advanced that they have recently forced me to question the relevancy of my languages degree.

Used effectively and morally, these AI tools do have the potential to foster productive advancements. Not just in the field of translation, but throughout academia. However, its current use feels somewhat uncontrolled and experimental.

Of course, a language graduate’s potential extends beyond the field of translation. Journalism, teaching, diplomacy and marketing are just a handful of sectors in which linguists can thrive. What’s more, translation is intrinsically tied to the publishing industry, which is also undergoing drastic changes. Declining literacy rates across our country demonstrate that this issue extends far beyond the language sector. It is something that should concern all of us. In many ways, the current climate only amplifies the importance of the language degree, which fosters the ability to think critically and independently.

More obvious defences for this degree outline the transferable skills of languages alongside their tangible cognitive benefits. The process of learning and handling foreign languages gives students a more perceptive and meticulous way of looking at things. Multilingual speakers are adept at quickly de-coding information, particularly when gaps are present or when they are required to glean a lot from a little.

Although I could write for hours about these professional and psychological benefits, I’d like to delve deeper into how this degree has benefitted me on a more personal level.

A key part of any languages degree is the translation of literary texts. This exercise demands creativity, soul, and human connection. In fact, many translators have highlighted the importance of their professional relationships with the text’s author. The International Booker Prize, perhaps the most well-known award for translated fiction, highly values that special symbiotic relationship between author and translator. In the magazine’s recent interview with Portuguese translator David Hahn, he described his profession as more than just “knowing loads of vocabulary.” He argued that “there is a suppleness to translation and the way we think about our own language we are writing in.”

It is this exact suppleness and delicacy that stems from human involvement. As invisible as they would like to be, the translator will always leave an imprint on their work.

And no doubt, the work will leave an imprint on them. Regardless of my future career, the foreign texts I’ve studied during my languages degree will stick with me for life. And hopefully, alongside them, the ability to read closely, to interpret and infer, and to decode complex information. Already, I would say that engaging closely with foreign literature has changed who I am. Namely, the approach I take to conversations and friendships, as well as the actions I implement in my daily life.

Since starting my degree in Italian and Spanish, I’ve learnt that nothing in the world quite compares to the satisfaction of finally understanding the written works of Dante or Cervantes in their respective mother tongue. And for me, that reward alone makes my degree worth it. I would encourage anyone to read foreign literature, even when it is translated, as it offers a completely exceptional reader experience. It teaches you that literary works can be so fluid, with multiple versions, editions, and translations, each with their own qualities and peculiarities.

Thankfully, this fluidity and instability of language means it is full to the brim of whimsical idiomatic phrases and nuanced metaphors, all of which a digital translator cannot (yet) fully compute. And it is here that I feel a languages graduate has the potential to really shine. The role of intermediary between the original text and its successful published translation simply must be human. I say this because in any piece of literature, there is an endless depth of alternative significance hidden beneath the prose. Some of these meanings are more obvious than others. There are those that require years of critical academic study to be confidently gleaned. Then, there are others that simply reveal themselves to a reader due to their unique experience of the world. But the invariable constant here is that these interpretations require the reader to think perceptively, beyond the information available on the page, by using the ideas and emotions that stem from their human experience. An AI bot cannot think as independently as mankind by running off recycled piles of pre-existing information.

Fundamentally, languages are much more than their written form. I’m currently on my year abroad, and every day I feel so grateful that I can speak the language I’ve spent the past few years trying to master. Once you’ve learnt a language, cracking a difficult translation or succeeding in a particularly challenging conversation gives you such a unique gratification. Sitting here, writing this on a sunny Spanish day in the library overlooking a sandstone cathedral, I can confidently say that so far my languages degree has reaffirmed one age-old cliché… that difficult journeys lead to beautiful destinations.

I think this leads me to the core of why I love foreign languages and why a degree in them is worth it. As fun as it may be to spend the afternoon engrossed in Italian literature or French film, nothing beats physically conversing with someone in the language. Since moving to Spain, I’ve learnt that occasionally my accent may slip and I may forget the odd word, but the conversation is always unbelievably rewarding. I think it all comes back to that desire for human connection. In a world that seems to move so fast, where everything is increasingly remote and digital, learning a foreign language is now more vital than ever."
by Imogen Forrest
November 14, 2025
https://theoxfordblue.co.uk/the-relevancy-of-a-languages-degree-in-the-age-of-ai-translation/?amp=1
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

"There’s an official push to rename our current era: Anthropocene. A few millennia from now, archeologists digging in the ground will come to a different layer. Less pollen, fewer tree trunks, a vast reduction in the bones of wild animals. A layer of ripped aluminum foil and plastic bits and chicken bones and radiation from nuclear tests. Even sedimentary layers of the oceans floor will show changes, the circulatory system shifted, the current that distributes salt and temperature globally. We humans are writing our autobiography in the planet’s dirt. When looked at through the lens of geologic time, our speed isn’t that different from a meteor strike.

*

Terms can also narrow our perceptions. Consider the names we have for the living world, this complex biosphere that our existence depends on, that provides the food we eat and the air we breathe.

The environment? That’s like naming your child organism. Such a lack of love or awe. The term brings to mind an office cubicle, something generic you can disassemble and reshape as you wish."

#metaglossia note

BY EDWIN L. BATTISTELLA  SEPTEMBER 3RD 2023  "The distinction between nouns and adjectives seems like it should be straightforward, but it’s not. Grammar is not as simple as your grade-school teacher presented it.

"The Race to Translate Animal Sounds Into Human Language
With big cash prizes at stake—and AI supercharging research—interspecies translation is closer than ever. But what, if anything, would animals want to tell us?..."

https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-translation-animal-sounds-human-language/

"Gilliatt de Staërck, a candidate in the French parliamentary elections, is campaigning against the dominance of English in French society. His policies aim to strengthen and develop the French language in various sectors.

"In honor of Friendship Day, the Herald is here for you with a list of phonetic phoneys to watch out for

"Machine translation (MT) is the process of automatically translating text from one language into another using computer applications.

"Machine translation (MT) is the process of automatically translating text from one language into another using computer applications.

"Google bets on African languages, including Dyula, Wolof, Baoulé and Tamazight

"Sran ng'ɔ bo alɛ'n i jɔ'n, ɔ diman alɛ sɔ'n wie." This Baoulé proverb is now translatable with Google Translate: "He who declares war does not participate in it."

Since its new update on June 27, the software from the American giant has been able to translate 110 new languages, including Breton and Occitan, as well as 31 African languages, among them Tamazight (Berber), Afar, Wolof, Dyula and Baoulé. According to Google, these languages represent 200 million speakers on the continent.

"Today, you can photograph a label in Mandarin and see it translated by Google Lens into Dyula," said Abdoulaye Diack, program manager at Google's artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Accra, Ghana, who said he wants to "bring communities together" with this new service.

Establishing these translation models was a major challenge, given the lack of available resources. Half of the content written on the internet is in English. French accounts for just 3%, and the many African languages for less than 1%. "There are blogs and news sites in Swahili, Hausa and Wolof, but many African languages have predominantly oral uses," Diack explained. "So the first task was to identify the written sources available." In addition to these sites, some major texts have been translated into almost every language on the planet, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bible and the Quran.

'An incentive effect'

Google's teams then worked with linguists from several faculties, such as the University of Ghana, and NGOs to accumulate data on all the targeted languages. These components were then used to train Google's AI, a learning model called PaLM2, which has already been tested with almost 400 languages. "Artificial intelligence is like a child," Diack summarized. "The more data the model receives, the more it learns, and the better the result."

Google's partners in the target communities – including organizations defending endangered languages and researchers – were asked to evaluate and improve the first AI translations until they reached a sufficient quality and quantity to launch the update. "This process takes several years. The results are not perfect, but they are satisfactory enough to be usable," explained Diack. "There are bound to be mistakes, but it will be useful for a lot of people."

This view is shared by Ivorian linguist Jérémie N'Guessan Kouadio, co-author of a French-Baoulé dictionary, whom Le Monde asked to test the new Google Translate update. "The Baoulé language is inseparable from its orality," he said. "To improve the result, we'd need, for example, to be able to render tones, those phonemes that can change the meaning of a word, which we note with diacritical marks below the syllable. Take 'sa': If I pronounce it with a high tone, it means 'the hand.' But with a low tone, it means 'thus.' All the languages of Côte d'Ivoire work like that, including Dyula."

Despite his reservations, N'Guessan Kouadio acknowledged that the software "has its uses." "For years, people have been trying to convince Africans – and Ivorians – that they can speak French or English, but also speak and write in their mother tongue," said the researcher. "I think software like this will have an incentive effect, particularly on young people in the diaspora who have drifted away from their language of origin."

Speech recognition and synthesis

Professional uses are also conceivable. The African languages previously added (five in 2020 and 10 in 2022, including Bambara, Lingala and Twi) are available as open source through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which enable a Google program or service to be connected. The software could also facilitate the work of human interpreters, predicted Yao Kanga Tanoh, from Côte d'Ivoire, whose translation orders mainly concern administrative documents: "Of course, I'll have to rework the result, but a machine translation will save me a lot of time."

The Silicon Valley giant has no intention of stopping there. It has set itself the medium-term goal of integrating a thousand languages, prioritized according to several criteria: the number of speakers, the feasibility of the project in terms of the abundance of written resources, but also the desire of the relevant community. "People had been asking us for Wolof for years," said Diack. His team also intends to develop a speech recognition and synthesis system for the recently added languages, as already exists for the previous ones. With this technology, a telephone will be able to instantly repeat a French sentence in Baoulé, a particularly useful option for illiterate speakers.

Google also claims to want to immortalize endangered languages, largely not used by younger generations. One of these is the N'Ko language, invented in 1949 by Guinean writer Solomana Kanté, with its unique alphabet designed to empower Mandingo communities by providing them with their own writing system.

Marine Jeannin (Abidjan, correspondent)

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/07/07/google-bets-on-african-languages-including-dyula-wolof-baoule-and-tamazight_6676960_19.html#

"Google bets on African languages, including Dyula, Wolof, Baoulé and Tamazight

"Sran ng'ɔ bo alɛ'n i jɔ'n, ɔ diman alɛ sɔ'n wie." This Baoulé proverb is now translatable with Google Translate: "He who declares war does not participate in it."

Since its new update on June 27, the software from the American giant has been able to translate 110 new languages, including Breton and Occitan, as well as 31 African languages, among them Tamazight (Berber), Afar, Wolof, Dyula and Baoulé. According to Google, these languages represent 200 million speakers on the continent.

"Today, you can photograph a label in Mandarin and see it translated by Google Lens into Dyula," said Abdoulaye Diack, program manager at Google's artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Accra, Ghana, who said he wants to "bring communities together" with this new service.

Establishing these translation models was a major challenge, given the lack of available resources. Half of the content written on the internet is in English. French accounts for just 3%, and the many African languages for less than 1%. "There are blogs and news sites in Swahili, Hausa and Wolof, but many African languages have predominantly oral uses," Diack explained. "So the first task was to identify the written sources available." In addition to these sites, some major texts have been translated into almost every language on the planet, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bible and the Quran.

'An incentive effect'

Google's teams then worked with linguists from several faculties, such as the University of Ghana, and NGOs to accumulate data on all the targeted languages. These components were then used to train Google's AI, a learning model called PaLM2, which has already been tested with almost 400 languages. "Artificial intelligence is like a child," Diack summarized. "The more data the model receives, the more it learns, and the better the result."

Google's partners in the target communities – including organizations defending endangered languages and researchers – were asked to evaluate and improve the first AI translations until they reached a sufficient quality and quantity to launch the update. "This process takes several years. The results are not perfect, but they are satisfactory enough to be usable," explained Diack. "There are bound to be mistakes, but it will be useful for a lot of people."

This view is shared by Ivorian linguist Jérémie N'Guessan Kouadio, co-author of a French-Baoulé dictionary, whom Le Monde asked to test the new Google Translate update. "The Baoulé language is inseparable from its orality," he said. "To improve the result, we'd need, for example, to be able to render tones, those phonemes that can change the meaning of a word, which we note with diacritical marks below the syllable. Take 'sa': If I pronounce it with a high tone, it means 'the hand.' But with a low tone, it means 'thus.' All the languages of Côte d'Ivoire work like that, including Dyula."

Despite his reservations, N'Guessan Kouadio acknowledged that the software "has its uses." "For years, people have been trying to convince Africans – and Ivorians – that they can speak French or English, but also speak and write in their mother tongue," said the researcher. "I think software like this will have an incentive effect, particularly on young people in the diaspora who have drifted away from their language of origin."

Speech recognition and synthesis

Professional uses are also conceivable. The African languages previously added (five in 2020 and 10 in 2022, including Bambara, Lingala and Twi) are available as open source through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which enable a Google program or service to be connected. The software could also facilitate the work of human interpreters, predicted Yao Kanga Tanoh, from Côte d'Ivoire, whose translation orders mainly concern administrative documents: "Of course, I'll have to rework the result, but a machine translation will save me a lot of time."

The Silicon Valley giant has no intention of stopping there. It has set itself the medium-term goal of integrating a thousand languages, prioritized according to several criteria: the number of speakers, the feasibility of the project in terms of the abundance of written resources, but also the desire of the relevant community. "People had been asking us for Wolof for years," said Diack. His team also intends to develop a speech recognition and synthesis system for the recently added languages, as already exists for the previous ones. With this technology, a telephone will be able to instantly repeat a French sentence in Baoulé, a particularly useful option for illiterate speakers.

Google also claims to want to immortalize endangered languages, largely not used by younger generations. One of these is the N'Ko language, invented in 1949 by Guinean writer Solomana Kanté, with its unique alphabet designed to empower Mandingo communities by providing them with their own writing system.

Marine Jeannin (Abidjan, correspondent)

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/07/07/google-bets-on-african-languages-including-dyula-wolof-baoule-and-tamazight_6676960_19.html#

"Sran ng'ɔ bo alɛ'n i jɔ'n, ɔ diman alɛ sɔ'n wie." This Baoulé proverb is now translatable with Google Translate: "He who declares war does not participate in it."

Since its new update on June 27, the software from the American giant has been able to translate 110 new languages, including Breton and Occitan, as well as 31 African languages, among them Tamazight (Berber), Afar, Wolof, Dyula and Baoulé. According to Google, these languages represent 200 million speakers on the continent.

"Today, you can photograph a label in Mandarin and see it translated by Google Lens into Dyula," said Abdoulaye Diack, program manager at Google's artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Accra, Ghana, who said he wants to "bring communities together" with this new service.

Establishing these translation models was a major challenge, given the lack of available resources. Half of the content written on the internet is in English. French accounts for just 3%, and the many African languages for less than 1%. "There are blogs and news sites in Swahili, Hausa and Wolof, but many African languages have predominantly oral uses," Diack explained. "So the first task was to identify the written sources available." In addition to these sites, some major texts have been translated into almost every language on the planet, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bible and the Quran.

'An incentive effect'

Google's teams then worked with linguists from several faculties, such as the University of Ghana, and NGOs to accumulate data on all the targeted languages. These components were then used to train Google's AI, a learning model called PaLM2, which has already been tested with almost 400 languages. "Artificial intelligence is like a child," Diack summarized. "The more data the model receives, the more it learns, and the better the result."

Google's partners in the target communities – including organizations defending endangered languages and researchers – were asked to evaluate and improve the first AI translations until they reached a sufficient quality and quantity to launch the update. "This process takes several years. The results are not perfect, but they are satisfactory enough to be usable," explained Diack. "There are bound to be mistakes, but it will be useful for a lot of people."

This view is shared by Ivorian linguist Jérémie N'Guessan Kouadio, co-author of a French-Baoulé dictionary, whom Le Monde asked to test the new Google Translate update. "The Baoulé language is inseparable from its orality," he said. "To improve the result, we'd need, for example, to be able to render tones, those phonemes that can change the meaning of a word, which we note with diacritical marks below the syllable. Take 'sa': If I pronounce it with a high tone, it means 'the hand.' But with a low tone, it means 'thus.' All the languages of Côte d'Ivoire work like that, including Dyula."

Despite his reservations, N'Guessan Kouadio acknowledged that the software "has its uses." "For years, people have been trying to convince Africans – and Ivorians – that they can speak French or English, but also speak and write in their mother tongue," said the researcher. "I think software like this will have an incentive effect, particularly on young people in the diaspora who have drifted away from their language of origin."

Speech recognition and synthesis

Professional uses are also conceivable. The African languages previously added (five in 2020 and 10 in 2022, including Bambara, Lingala and Twi) are available as open source through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which enable a Google program or service to be connected. The software could also facilitate the work of human interpreters, predicted Yao Kanga Tanoh, from Côte d'Ivoire, whose translation orders mainly concern administrative documents: "Of course, I'll have to rework the result, but a machine translation will save me a lot of time."

The Silicon Valley giant has no intention of stopping there. It has set itself the medium-term goal of integrating a thousand languages, prioritized according to several criteria: the number of speakers, the feasibility of the project in terms of the abundance of written resources, but also the desire of the relevant community. "People had been asking us for Wolof for years," said Diack. His team also intends to develop a speech recognition and synthesis system for the recently added languages, as already exists for the previous ones. With this technology, a telephone will be able to instantly repeat a French sentence in Baoulé, a particularly useful option for illiterate speakers.

Google also claims to want to immortalize endangered languages, largely not used by younger generations. One of these is the N'Ko language, invented in 1949 by Guinean writer Solomana Kanté, with its unique alphabet designed to empower Mandingo communities by providing them with their own writing system.

Marine Jeannin (Abidjan, correspondent)

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.

"Cambridge Dictionary has named its word of the year for 2025, alighting on "parasocial", used to describe a connection that people feel with someone they don't know - or even with an artificial intelligence.

The term was coined in 1956 by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, who wanted to describe how television viewers formed "para-social" relationships with TV personalities, the dictionary said...

This phenomenon continues today, as social media users form parasocial relationships with celebrities, influencers and online personalities with whom they have no personal connection.

A key example cited by Cambridge Dictionary is singer Taylor Swift, who announced her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce this year, with many fans talking of their heartfelt feelings toward a couple that the vast majority had never met.

Another is British singer Lily Allen, whose latest album West End Girl tells the story of a breakup and sparked a "parasocial interest in her love life", according to the statement.

And use of the term has surged this year, particularly as concerns over the connections that some people have started to develop with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT have come to the fore.

Colin McIntosh, a lexicographer at the Cambridge Dictionary, said the word "captures the 2025 zeitgeist" and demonstrates how language changes.

"What was once a specialist academic term has become mainstream," he said in the statement.

"Millions of people are engaged in parasocial relationships; many more are simply intrigued by their rise...

"The language around parasocial phenomena is evolving fast, as technology, society and culture shift and mutate: from celebrities to chatbots, parasocial trends are fascinating for those who are interested in the development of language," he said.

Simone Schnall, professor of experimental social psychology at the University of Cambridge, said in the statement that the word "is an inspired choice."

"The rise of parasocial relationships has redefined fandom, celebrity and, with AI, how ordinary people interact online," she said.

"We've entered an age where many people form unhealthy and intense parasocial relationships with influencers," Schnall added.

"This leads to a sense that people 'know' those they form parasocial bonds with, can trust them and even to extreme forms of loyalty..."

Cambridge Dictionary also highlighted a number of other words that it said have had a "significant impact" this year.

Among their number is "slop", defined as "content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially when it is created by artificial intelligence," as well as "memeify," or "to turn an event, image, person, etc. into a meme."

And the dictionary added 6000 new words this year, with notable newbies including "delulu", "skibidi" and "tradwife.""
https://www.rnz.co.nz/life/culture/cambridge-dictionary-s-2025-word-of-the-year-captures-an-unhealthy-modern-phenomenon
#Metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus

Philip Akoda is one of the faces of digital language preservation in Africa. Through his startup, The African Languages Project (AFLANG), he has championed several projects aimed at preserving African languages and cultures, including a fast-growing Yoruba Dictionary app making waves in the digital space. A graduate of Business Management from the University of Derby, Philip is also a recognised figure when it comes to subjects such as African history and languages. His passion for–and work in promoting–African languages and cultures got him invited to speak at the UK House of Parliament during the Black History Month Celebrations.

In this interview with Olufemi Ajasa, this intriguing enigma shares his journey into African language preservation, the recent Yoruba Dictionary app developed by his startup and the importance of technology in preserving African languages and cultures.

Can you tell us about Mr Philip Akoda?

Thank you so much. It’s an honour to be here. My name is Philip Akoda, I’m the founder and CEO of The African Languages Project, also known as AFLANG (short for African Languages). The AFLANG Project is an EdTech startup which builds mobile apps aimed at preserving and promoting African languages and culture. We’ve been operating since 2017 and have built several mobile apps for languages such as Ndebele spoken in Zimbabwe, Fante in Ghana and Oromo in Ethiopia. We’ve also built mobile dictionary apps for languages such as Yoruba and Efik, both Nigerian languages. Outside my startup, I’m also a multipublished author and lexicographer.

What is a lexicographer?

A lexicographer is a person who writes or compiles dictionaries.

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How did you come to be a lexicographer? Is there special training for that?

Well, lexicographers can be trained or untrained. There are people in history who wrote dictionaries but did not have prior experience in lexicography. For me, my entry into lexicography began in 2021 when I chose to undertake the task of building the first Efik dictionary app, which is available on the Google Playstore and the App Store. The app took 1 year and 2 months to build, but the outcome was a mobile dictionary app with over 14,000 words. It had definitions, synonyms, antonyms, audio pronunciations, and much more. Then, while the app was still in development, I began writing my first Efik pocket dictionary which I published a few months after the app was released.

Why did you choose to embark on the Efik Dictionary app?

Being of Efik descent via my mother’s lineage, and also having grown up in Calabar, I was obsessed with preserving and promoting the language, so in 2017, I launched the first Efik language learning app on Google Play Store; this was a pioneering effort because no similar apps existed at the time. This milestone then deepened my curiosity about my Efik heritage, leading me to conduct extensive research on Efik history, language, and culture–even uncovering things that a lot of people don’t know about. In fact, it became such that people would consult with me, instead of elders, to learn more about topics in these areas. The knowledge I gained inspired me to write several Wikipedia articles on several aspects of Efik culture and then to co-author my first Efik history book, Groundwork of Eniong Abatim History (1670–2020). I co-authored the book alongside my mother, Prof Winifred Eyoanwan Akoda (née Adam); her mother–that’s my grandmother–was of the Eniong Abatim community and before we embarked on the research and authorship of the book, there was no such work done to preserve her people’s history. Before this historical work, I authored Learn Efik 1–2, an animated language learning book series now widely used in schools across Calabar in Cross River State and housed in prestigious libraries worldwide, including the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and the Harvard University Library.

Can you tell us more about the Yoruba dictionary app, what it is all about and what inspired its creation?

The Yoruba Dictionary app was a project I initiated through my AFLANG startup. Interestingly, I found out that my mother, who is an Efik princess, also has Yoruba roots through her paternal grandmother, who was a descendant of Afro-brazilian returnees. So that then got me obsessed with tracing that part of her lineage and exploring the Yoruba language and history. Interestingly, from this, I found out that my last name is actually a Yoruba name; I say interesting because I’m paternally from Benin City, Edo. And apparently, the name has several interpretations in Yoruba, depending on the Yoruba community. Akoda means creator; it is also an orisha. It can also mean Ancestor, which I sometimes find ironic since most people would say the work of a dictionary is an ancestor’s job… Anyway, so this time, working with a much larger team, we managed to build the most comprehensive mobile dictionary app in Africa. Actually, it is even more comprehensive than the Efik dictionary app; it contains over 22,000 words. Then in addition to definitions, audio pronunciations by indigenous speakers, synonyms, antonyms, and phonemic transcriptions, it also has hypernyms, hyponyms, keywords, and dialectal variations for 12 different yoruba dialects including Owo, Egba, Olukunmi, Awori, and so on. I think something that also sets the app apart, besides their novelty, is our inclusion of diacritics… that’s accent marks. I was insistent on this inclusion from the start because otherwise, we’re not being authentic to the language.

What unique features does the app offer to users learning or researching the Yoruba language?

When I describe the app to people, I think the very first thing that shocks them is that we actually took the time to go to the studio and record audio pronunciations by two Yoruba linguists, not just lazily using Google translate or some AI-generation tool; so that is the first unique feature I’ll mention–we also did this for the Efik dictionary app using two indigenous speakers. Also, even though our Yoruba linguists made sure to enunciate slowly, we still added a feature to slow down the audio so that no matter what, you can really hear all the syllables as they should be pronounced. Then besides the uniqueness of the dictionary’s content–which I explained before, there is a word of the day feature where users get notified of a new word every day. This is usually a really fascinating word that users are most likely unfamiliar with. There is also a badges’ rewards system to award users with Yoruba titles for performing certain actions on the app. There is an automated recommended words feature to suggest 5 new yoruba words from our database that users can learn about. It’s also sort of fun because there’s a Regenerate button below your recommendations so every time you tap it, you’ll receive a different set of words to explore. There are also other interesting features: favourites and downloads for storing your favourite words and downloading their audios to listen offline. And knowing people’s internet connectivity issues, we also provide offline mode so you can use the app freely, without internet.

Related News

Nigerian researcher promotes Yoruba language through research, teaching, community engagement

I'll risk my life to see Nigerian language come true - NICO CEO

Dafinone calls for Urhobo language preservation, urges parents to act

How does the app address the challenges of preserving and promoting indigenous languages like Yoruba?

I often tell people that dictionary apps are lifelong companions. Also, the difference between a print hardcopy dictionary or a PDF dictionary versus a dictionary app is that data in the dictionary app can be updated at any time. In fact, we’ve managed to build a whole content management system such that we can update or correct the dictionary’s content immediately and you’ll see it reflected on the app. Now, at present, there are over 57 million Yoruba speakers globally. Yoruba films are also on the rise, but from what I’ve seen, one constraint faced by modern-day Yoruba speakers is the ability to read or write Yoruba with ease. A lot of people I meet can speak Yoruba but cannot write or read Yoruba. So this app also solves the problem of reading and writing since, again going back to the accent marks I mentioned before, you can find words correctly spelt using the Yoruba orthography. And again, the app has audio pronunciations too by real indigenous speakers so that helps users to not just read a word, but know how it is pronounced.

Could you tell us about the team behind the app and their respective contributions?

There were several people on this project, including academics and techies. EdTech, the industry I work in, is a combination of Educational and Technology, so we needed the best minds in both the educational and technological fields. For the educational sector, we worked with various academics in UNILAG, UNILORIN and UI. Many of their names are on the About section of the app. For the technical aspect of the app, my co-founder, Mary-Brenda Akoda led the technical team. Mary-Brenda also happens to be my sister. She is a postgraduate AI researcher at Imperial College London. She is also a Software Engineer with experience at Microsoft and a Google DeepMind Scholar. She was responsible for the UI/UX design and full-stack development of the Yoruba Dictionary app. She was actually the one who introduced the novel features to the app like the badges and the automated recommended words feature. My mother, Prof. Winifred Akoda was also responsible for liaising with academics in universities along the South West to gather data for the dialects and also supervise the data collection process. She’s actually a professor of history and field research and has been doing that for over 30 years, so that was really an asset to our work.

What is it like working with your family?

I love my family. I feel fortunate to have a mother and sister with a strong educational and technical background.

How has the reception been since the app launched?

It has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, in just two weeks of marketing the app, we had over 12,000 downloads and not just from Nigeria; we got from Cuba as well. And we now have a 4.8 rating on Google Playstore and a 5 out of 5 rating on the App store. We kept getting very positive feedback and excitement from people on social media too; I think people also weren’t expecting such a fun and animated UI/UX design for a dictionary app so that surprised them and got them engaged. We also try to get suggestions from people too so that we make sure we keep improving our users’ experience.

Are there plans to expand the app’s functionality or include additional languages?

We originally intended on adding games to the app, but it was a lot of features to handle all at once. We will still add them in a few months. We’re also working on our next language project, a Hausa Dictionary app.

How about the Igbo language?

We intend to go into that later. Igbo is a bit tricky since we need to take a more dialectical approach for Igbo. Unlike Yoruba, Igbo people lean more towards their dialects. There is the standard Igbo but it is impractical since it is usually relegated to written literature and the educational sector. So for example, if we had two Ekiti people in the room, they are more likely to speak standard Yoruba unless they discover that they are from Ekiti. The case is different with Igbo. Designing the Igbo dictionary app will mean taking into consideration the various Igbo dialects. If users want to search for Mmiri in Igbo, other options will also have to reflect like Mmili and Mmini. Basically, lexicography is a complicated art that requires a lot of critical thinking.

What is your educational background, and how has it shaped your career in lexicography?

I undertook my secondary education in Calabar but also schooled at the Lagos City Computer College, Ikeja for two years. I then attended the University of Essex but then 2016’s recession affected many Nigerian international students, so I couldn’t continue there. But I later graduated from the University of Derby. It was actually while at Essex that I ventured into language preservation. I released my first language learning app–that was the Efik one–while I was a student at the university. Because of the app, I was invited to speak at the Black History Month celebration in the UK House of Parliament… But I cannot say my educational background played a role in my journey into lexicography. These things just happen. Life will take you on a path you will never expect. I thought I would graduate with a computer engineering degree but rather ended up finding my passion for language preservation, establishing AFLANG, and then graduating with a first class honours degree in Business Management from the University of Derby.

Apart from the Yoruba Dictionary app, what other notable projects have you worked on?

I’ve authored an Efik pocket dictionary called A 21st Century Efik Pocket Dictionary, which stands as one of my proudest accomplishments. The work actually represents a fresh approach to Efik lexicography. Unlike the Yoruba language, where tonal marks are applied to vowels, the Efik people prefer not to apply markings when writing letters and other documents. Because of this approach, I devised an innovative method to present Efik words in a manner that resonates with both native speakers and linguists.

Can you share any challenges or breakthroughs in your career as a lexicographer?

I would say that one of my biggest breakthroughs as a lexicographer is introducing the conversation of synonymy, hyponymy, hypernymy, and antonymy–topics that are not given so much limelight in the study of African Languages and Linguistics.

Are there any upcoming publications we should look forward to?

At present, I have 3 more publications I’m working on. One of them is focused on the Yoruba language and will greatly help Yoruba speakers across the world.

Are you a Yoruba speaker?

Interestingly, I am not but I’ve had to work really hard to understand the language. For the current book I’ve been working on, I used over 50books as sources including 16 Yoruba dictionaries and submitted it to 3 academics across the southwest to review and proofread.

In your opinion, what role does technology play in language preservation?

Technology is instrumental to the preservation of our languages. Any language that does not align with technology is greatly at risk, because oral tradition and print books can only go so far.

What advice would you give to young scholars or linguists looking to pursue a career in lexicography?

Be patient, be consistent, be curious and be ready to always come out of your comfort zone. To venture into lexicography, you need to be daring. You’re likely to face opposition from more experienced lexicographers, but be open to learning from them and also be courageous enough to find your own path.

Outside of lexicography, what are your interests or hobbies?

I enjoy writing Wikipedia articles. I’ve written a number of them on different aspects of Efik culture and on different personalities as well, both historical and living. I also enjoy swimming and travelling.

What can individuals, organizations, and governments do to support efforts like yours?

Individuals, organizations, and governments play pivotal roles in supporting efforts to preserve and promote indigenous languages. We are actively seeking funding, including donations and grants from both individuals and organizations, to grow and expand, and so that more people get to know about our apps and benefit from them. We are also open to contracting and/or consulting for both local and international organizations that want to increase their language preservation efforts for African languages or to make them digitally available; we already have a highly specialised team of African linguists, lexicographers, and academics, so such collaborations would certainly be within our comfort zone and done in the correct orthography of the language. We are also open to working with governments as well to institutionalise our efforts. The government can implement policies that make indigenous language education mandatory and they can allocate resources for linguistic research and development.

How can people get involved with AFLANG or contribute to the growth of the Yoruba Dictionary app?

Readers and users can get involved by downloading and engaging with our apps, and if they like it, please leave a rating and review so that more people get to find it and learn something new. We also have a Give Feedback option on the app; users should please use it to give us feedback or they can also reach out to us via admin@theaflangproject.org. It helps us understand what works well and what can be improved. Readers can also recommend the Yoruba Dictionary app to friends, family, and colleagues who are interested in learning Yoruba or in preserving indigenous languages. Also, if you have expertise in Yoruba language, culture, or linguistics, you can collaborate with us by contributing new words, phrases, or contextual examples to enrich the dictionary’s content. And of course, as mentioned before, we’re actively seeking funding so that would be another way to get involved, so that we can grow the app, add more features, and expand to many more languages; we hope to develop comprehensive dictionary apps for 10 African languages within the next 5 years. So your involvement, no matter how small, helps us build a stronger foundation for preserving African languages and promoting their global appreciation.

"While the pandemic briefly engaged policymakers’ creativity around alternate assessment methods, their support for those traditional multiple-choice tests has since come roaring back in both K-12 and higher ed. If COVID wasn’t enough to force policymakers to realize the futility of continuing with accountability as we currently know it, maybe AI will be."

"The Sanskrit Dictionary initiative, a project spanning 76 years and 35 volumes, aims to create a comprehensive dictionary of Sanskrit to English.
Prasad Joshi, professor and general editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project, at work with a researcher at the Department of Sanskrit and Lexicography, Deccan College, Pune. (Rahul Raut/ ht photo)
Prasad Joshi, professor and general editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project, at work with a researcher at the Department of Sanskrit and Lexicography, Deccan College, Pune. (Rahul Raut/ ht photo)

The Sanskrit Dictionary initiative is an expansive project that bears testimony to the perseverance and scholastic dedication of intellectuals over 76 years. This linguistic odyssey traces its roots to the year following India’s liberation from British rule.

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The project which was incubated at the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, in Pune, garnered support from the central government, finding an ally in the Central Sanskrit University (CSU), Delhi, last month. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the two institutes with a focus on resource exchange to fortify the project, coupled with collaborative efforts in running Sanskrit courses.

Prof Shrinivasa Varakhedi, vice-chancellor, CSU, said the institute has not been able to pick up enough projects due to funds constraints. “We have resumed working on fresh projects with support of education ministry. A year ago, work on the Sanskrit Dictionary project was brought to my notice. Apart from giving funds we will also collaborate on human resources,” he said.

Project review

The encyclopedic dictionary of Sanskrit to English, spans 2.2 million vocables and a staggering 10 million references, across 35 volumes, published through 6056 pages so far.

According to Ganesh Devy, a language expert best known for his work on People’s Linguistic Survey of India, the project is unique because it is trying to exhaust the complete range of Sanskrit language. “This dictionary can be used to know real history about ancient times, and the Indian subcontinent’s relations with central and west Asia. More importantly, we will be able to interpret various ancient learnings in an appropriate way,” said Devy.

The project’s initiation dates back to 1948. It was conceived and planned by SM Katre, former professor of Indo-European Philology and director of the Deccan college. The object was to render Sanskrit language into English. He embarked on the mission after participating in the Wilson Philological lectures, in UK, when he discovered that dictionaries existed for other languages but none for Sanskrit.

Spanning more than three generations of lexicographers, the dictionary project has become a legacy, with editors passing on the torch. The institute claims that the Sanskrit Dictionary surpasses the famed Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in magnitude, which has 0.5 million entries, 3.5 million quotations covering a span of 1000 years of the language.

In his book ‘The Wonder That Was India,’ noted professor, historian, author and an Indologist Arthur Llewellyn Basham asserted that this “dictionary, upon completion, would stand as the greatest work of Sanskrit Lexicography ever witnessed worldwide”. Basham, who passed away in 1986, taught luminaries such as Romila Thapar and Ram Sharan Sharma.

“There are Greek and Latin dictionaries. But none exist for Sanskrit covering the history and timespan of that language – by history we mean the first piece of literature available, either oral or written. For Sanskrit, the Rigveda is the first available text evidence of the language,” said Prasad Joshi, Deccan College professor, and general editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project since 2017.

Play with words

The dictionary focuses on how words and their forms have changed over time, and how their meaning has evolved. They are analysed logically and linked to various nuances and shades together. The encyclopedic nature of the dictionary provides information on the form of vocables as a guide, the part of the speech of the word to which it belongs, accent, etymology, derivation and the development in Indo-Aryan era.

It was no easy task.

“After identifying words, we collect their references. The scholars study the context and meaning before finalising the entries. It is checked, re-checked and edited, before it is sent for publishing,” said Joshi. It draws inspiration from a primary corpus of approximately 1500 Sanskrit treatises, spanning 1400 BC to 1850 AD.

Retired professor Jayashree Sathe, who was the general editor of the project between 2010 to 2017, said, “We faced serious challenges when I came onboard, as research scholars appointed for posts created by the central government retired, leaving us with a paltry support staff. When I started the work in 1985 there were around 38 to 40 research scholars and when I became the editor, we had a team of hardly 13 to 14 people. There was always a fear of the department shutting down due to shortage of manpower.”

She said the fruits of labour materialized with the release of the first volume in 1976, three years after its editing process began. Given that a team of around 20 linguistic and Sanskrit experts are working on the project, it might take more than a century for it to be complete, she added.

The dictionary has been categorised into 62 branches, such as veda, darśana, epics, dharmaśāstra and ancient lexicons. It also includes literature, poetics, dramaturgy, prosody, anthologies or topics with science as base such as mathematics, architecture, alchemy, agriculture, medicine and veterinary sciences. It also includes words pertaining to music, in-door games, inscriptions, warfare and economics.

Speaking about the way ahead for this project, Joshi said, “The first stage of compiling the data is complete and the second stage of upgradation has started, which is likely to be complete in 10 years. If manpower is increased, the editing process will be expedited we will be able to publish more volumes in one year.”

Meanwhile, recognising the need for digital footprint, CDAC has been enlisted to spearhead the digitization of the works. “We don’t see youths coming to libraries to collect books. So, we will make the dictionary available online for people to access from across the world. In future, we will also create mobile apps,” said Joshi.

The magnitude of data makes it an important tool for various fields such as history, culture, linguistics, philology, computational linguistics, patents etc.

“It is definitive and comprehensive – in that sense it is unique,” said Devy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
author-default-90x90
Yogesh Joshi
Yogesh Joshi is Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times. He covers politics, security, development and human rights from Western Maharashtra."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/tracking-the-construction-of-india-s-longest-linguistic-project-the-sanskrit-dictionary-101706987325106.html

"The Sanskrit Dictionary initiative, a project spanning 76 years and 35 volumes, aims to create a comprehensive dictionary of Sanskrit to English.

....The encyclopedic dictionary of Sanskrit to English, spans 2.2 million vocables and a staggering 10 million references, across 35 volumes, published through 6056 pages so far...

The project’s initiation dates back to 1948. It was conceived and planned by SM Katre, former professor of Indo-European Philology and director of the Deccan college. The object was to render Sanskrit language into English. He embarked on the mission after participating in the Wilson Philological lectures, in UK, when he discovered that dictionaries existed for other languages but none for Sanskrit.

Spanning more than three generations of lexicographers, the dictionary project has become a legacy, with editors passing on the torch. The institute claims that the Sanskrit Dictionary surpasses the famed Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in magnitude, which has 0.5 million entries, 3.5 million quotations covering a span of 1000 years of the language....

“There are Greek and Latin dictionaries. But none exist for Sanskrit covering the history and timespan of that language – by history we mean the first piece of literature available, either oral or written. For Sanskrit, the Rigveda is the first available text evidence of the language,” said Prasad Joshi, Deccan College professor, and general editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project since 2017.

Play with words

The dictionary focuses on how words and their forms have changed over time, and how their meaning has evolved. They are analysed logically and linked to various nuances and shades together. The encyclopedic nature of the dictionary provides information on the form of vocables as a guide, the part of the speech of the word to which it belongs, accent, etymology, derivation and the development in Indo-Aryan era.

It was no easy task.

“After identifying words, we collect their references. The scholars study the context and meaning before finalising the entries. It is checked, re-checked and edited, before it is sent for publishing,” said Joshi. It draws inspiration from a primary corpus of approximately 1500 Sanskrit treatises, spanning 1400 BC to 1850 AD...

The dictionary has been categorised into 62 branches, such as veda, darśana, epics, dharmaśāstra and ancient lexicons. It also includes literature, poetics, dramaturgy, prosody, anthologies or topics with science as base such as mathematics, architecture, alchemy, agriculture, medicine and veterinary sciences. It also includes words pertaining to music, in-door games, inscriptions, warfare and economics...."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/tracking-the-construction-of-india-s-longest-linguistic-project-the-sanskrit-dictionary-101706987325106.html

"The Sanskrit Dictionary initiative, a project spanning 76 years and 35 volumes, aims to create a comprehensive dictionary of Sanskrit to English.

....The encyclopedic dictionary of Sanskrit to English, spans 2.2 million vocables and a staggering 10 million references, across 35 volumes, published through 6056 pages so far...

The project’s initiation dates back to 1948. It was conceived and planned by SM Katre, former professor of Indo-European Philology and director of the Deccan college. The object was to render Sanskrit language into English. He embarked on the mission after participating in the Wilson Philological lectures, in UK, when he discovered that dictionaries existed for other languages but none for Sanskrit.

Spanning more than three generations of lexicographers, the dictionary project has become a legacy, with editors passing on the torch. The institute claims that the Sanskrit Dictionary surpasses the famed Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in magnitude, which has 0.5 million entries, 3.5 million quotations covering a span of 1000 years of the language....

“There are Greek and Latin dictionaries. But none exist for Sanskrit covering the history and timespan of that language – by history we mean the first piece of literature available, either oral or written. For Sanskrit, the Rigveda is the first available text evidence of the language,” said Prasad Joshi, Deccan College professor, and general editor of Sanskrit Dictionary Project since 2017.

Play with words

The dictionary focuses on how words and their forms have changed over time, and how their meaning has evolved. They are analysed logically and linked to various nuances and shades together. The encyclopedic nature of the dictionary provides information on the form of vocables as a guide, the part of the speech of the word to which it belongs, accent, etymology, derivation and the development in Indo-Aryan era.

It was no easy task.

“After identifying words, we collect their references. The scholars study the context and meaning before finalising the entries. It is checked, re-checked and edited, before it is sent for publishing,” said Joshi. It draws inspiration from a primary corpus of approximately 1500 Sanskrit treatises, spanning 1400 BC to 1850 AD...

The dictionary has been categorised into 62 branches, such as veda, darśana, epics, dharmaśāstra and ancient lexicons. It also includes literature, poetics, dramaturgy, prosody, anthologies or topics with science as base such as mathematics, architecture, alchemy, agriculture, medicine and veterinary sciences. It also includes words pertaining to music, in-door games, inscriptions, warfare and economics...."

#metaglossia_mundus: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/tracking-the-construction-of-india-s-longest-linguistic-project-the-sanskrit-dictionary-101706987325106.html