[A12n-forum] Local languages & software development in Ethiopia

["Don Osborn" <dzo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This item dates to about the time of the Bamako 2002 conference* but has an
interesting assessment of the state of localization. It would be interesting
to get an update on the situation in Ethiopia, and how localization efforts
there compare with those in South Africa.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

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"Local languages and software development in Ethiopia"
08/05/2002

The information revolution is changing the language map of the world with
English becoming the dominant language of the electronic era. This is even
threatening those languages that have dominated parts of the world for the
past centuries. Local African languages are in grave danger and face
marginalization in the Internet revolution. Unless concerted efforts are
made to include the use of local languages in the electronic world, the
digital gap will widen, resulting in greater exclusion. Afework Temtime
reports on efforts underway in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has been at the forefront in Africa of developing software
standards for local language usage on the computer and the Internet.
Software developers are developing Ethiopic, which is the script used for
writing Ethiopian languages, particularly those derived from Geez, an
ancient language used mainly by the Orthodox churches of the country.
However, there are some unresolved issues in this innovative and pioneering
work as the development of Ethiopic has not been standardized - each
software developer is creating their own version of keyboard layout making
it difficult for users to grasp the various forms. Consequently, through the
efforts of the Ethiopian Computer Standards Association and the Quality and
Standards Authority of Ethiopia, sets of standards for Ethiopic computing
are being developed. The first standard on character set definition was
recently finalised. The others to follow include the character encoding
system, keyboard layout, and Ethiopic-Latin transliteration. The standards
will facilitate communication using Ethiopic scripts in the digital world
and contribute significantly to Ethiopia's participation in the information
society. Such developments should be encouraged as best practices for other
African countries to follow as they generate and disseminate local content
in local languages, creating and democratizing access to the information
society by all Africans. The harmonious development of the information
society is made stronger by the availability of multilingual and
multicultural information. The diversity of the potential user population in
Africa in terms of different languages raises a host of technological
challenges and calls for us to take advantage of technologies which
facilitate communication and access to information in as many languages and
scripts as possible so as to ensure maximum self-expression, education,
science, culture and communication. Yet, African languages are among those
mostly marginalized in the Internet revolution and it is for this reason
that ECA and La Francophonie are holding a workshop during Bamako 2002 to
examine the necessary actions needed to promote multilingualism in the
information society.

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Seen on the APC site at
http://www.apc.org/english/rights/africa/alerts-content.shtml?x=6056

* The report of the "African languages and the internet" workshop at this
conference is accessible at
http://www.geneva2003.org/bamako2002/doc_html/languagesandinternet-en.html