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In a country with 11 official languages, multilingual technology is king


Johannesburg, 22 Feb 2011

Many of the world's 6 000 languages are absent from the public arena, and 50% are in danger of disappearing altogether. As the world observes International Mother Language Day today, we are also celebrating it in our “Rainbow Nation”, where 10 million citizens speak isiZulu as their first language, 8 million isiXhosa, 4 million Sesotho sa Leboa and 6.5 million Afrikaans, to name a few.

In fact, in South Africa, more than 47 million people use 25 different languages every single day. “Speaking bits of the official and unofficial languages outside of English and my mother tongue, Tamil, I also daily engage in technology speak,” says Vis Naidoo, Citizenship lead at Microsoft South Africa. “The challenge for me is to translate this sometimes complicated language into easily understandable solutions for the recipients of our broad citizenship outreach programmes.”

Nurturing a rich linguistic diversity depends on local languages becoming more than just vehicles of cultural heritage - they must also become vehicles of opportunity for advancement. South Africa's much-acclaimed multilingual language policy was born of the need to recognise and support those African languages that were marginalised in the past.

Part of Microsoft's Citizenship outreach is the company's translation of software packages into local languages. Naidoo says: “Through Microsoft's broader Local Language Program, we have seen first-hand how providing software programs in local languages has opened up new worlds for education and the economic participation of millions, and especially so in adult and continuing education among previously disadvantaged communities.”

The software company's partnership over the years with local translation vendor, Web-lingo, has seen the successful translation of its software and operating systems into the four language streams of Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Sesotho sa Leboa.

“In a country, whose indigenous languages form the basis of local cultures, it is no easy task to apply nuances such as idiomatic expressions and colour sensitivities to the localisation of these language interface packs into the correct technical lexis for each vernacular,” says Web-lingo GM Sonette Hill.

“In fact, when Web-lingo originally had to translate the 4 million words used in the Office 2007 suite and Vista operating system into the four languages, this herculean task took the 40 linguists and project managers working on it many hundreds of hours to successfully complete.”

Languages in general have a wider social function - they reflect the dynamic growth of science and technology. As a language is used less and less, speakers lose confidence and pride in it. The creation of technical languages is therefore directly linked to the revival and growth of all national languages.

To build interoperable solutions applicable to real-world problems, Microsoft has also worked with local open source software evangelist, Dwayne Bailey, of Translate.org.za, to incorporate the Creole machine translation support from Bing into Translate.org.za's Virtaal tool.

“This made it possible to translate anything from disaster management software to documents, press releases, blogs and other content in a tool specifically designed for human translators,” says Niadoo. “This tool can play a real role for global government agencies and NGOs in international disaster-relief efforts, where language presents a barrier to effective aid.”

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Editorial contacts

Lani Botha
Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations
(+27) 11 548 2023
lani.botha@fleishman.co.za