ktravula – a travelogue!

Google ni Yoruba!

I came across this encouraging (though thoroughly belated) news a few days ago, on twitter and elsewhere, from a friend familiar with my work, advocacy, and interest in facilitating the use of African languages, particularly Yoruba, in today’s world, particularly in Information Technology. Google is opening up its famous Google Translate machine to include a number of populous African languages.

This is encouraging for a number of reasons:

Google-Translate-Banner1First, I have spent the last two years petitioning Twitter to include Yoruba as one of the languages in which the platform is being currently translated, without much luck. It has however led to an annual Tweet Yoruba Day – a day set aside in March of every year to document trends in the use of the language on electronic platforms, advocate/encourage continuous use, and celebrate the rich depths that the language brings to the world. Having Google take this step without a major public petitioning is heartening.

Secondly, the Google machine is a worldwide platform with reaches into the farthest corners of the earth. Having Yoruba join the league of other world languages, famous and non-famous, in which thoughts and opinions can be transmitted through translation is something to be proud of. I am proud of it. I am also glad that I am here to witness, and contribute to its development. (More on this later).

And third, the sample translations given on the page created by Google for freelance translators towards this project shows that – though very far from perfect, Google has put a lot of efforts into the initial work. That is admirable. Long before the project was announced, word-to-word translations for a number of Yoruba words were already sourced and documented. They will not suffice as far as the final translation engine is concerned, but this is an encouraging start. As the current state of the machine shows, the syntax is far from perfect. I’ll rate all the translations “poor”.

The next step now is to build a larger corpus that includes more than just word-to-word associations, but phrases, proverbs, aphorisms, colloquialisms, songs, and a number of other culturally relevant communicative utterances that make Yoruba a uniquely rich African language. Then, run them through different tense and aspect variations present in the language, and have translators/linguists tweak it until it is as close to perfect as possible. This will take a lot of time, a lot of effort, plenty texts from different levels of complexity in Yoruba speech (from poems to novels), and a number of dedicated people. However, this start is an important step.

I applaud, and will keep my eyes – and fingers – on it.

Google ni Yoruba! was published on August 29th, 2013, with the tags , , , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Ramblings on Tone

What can be observable in the process of acquisition of tones by L1 speakers of English? Chinese (and a host of other languages in South East Asia) already gives us an enormous database of observable patterns. African languages (in this case Yoruba) occupy another level of the problematic realm for those merely accustomed to a language based on intonation, stress and inflections. Why is it funny when my friends call me in a way that rhymes my name with Cola or “caller” rather than with the uptalk mode of pronouncing the “sugar” in “sugar daddy” or the “brother” in “brotherly love”. Tone is music, rising and falling as needed. What makes it imperative that speakers of English relate to it only in one direction, viz (usually) as a high-low in a two syllable word? Why will “Bolaji” sound like “allergy” rather than the “beautiful” in “beautiful girl”?

What other nuggets are observable? How much proficiency can an L1 English speaker really acquire in a tonal language like Yoruba? With the many years of study by people like Karin Barber and (perhaps) Susanne Wenger, could they/did they pass the native-like proficiency test? What is the bar for native-like proficiency anyway?; and besides the general list of impediments across second language learning processes, what are the specifics in L2 tonal language learning that presents the greatest obstacles? And how does it happen? It is after all equally easy, equally difficult to learn any language either at L1 or L2 level given an equal and sustained level of interest and low affective filter. Jargons, jargons.

A linguist might know, or at least be neck deep in the long process of finding out.

Ramblings on Tone was published on May 21st, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Academic, Observations category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.