To browse Academia. In today's digital multilingual world, language technology is crucial for providing access to information and opportunities for economic development. With approximately two thousand different languages, Africa is a multilingual continent par excellence, presenting acute challenges for those seeking to promote and use African languages in the areas of business development, education and relief aid.
In recent times a number of researchers and institutions, both from Africa and elsewhere, have come forward to share the common goal of developing capabilities in language technology for African languages. In and , the first two workshops on African Language Technology were organized as a forum to bring together a wide range of researchers working in this domain.
However, the level of knowledge and skills in HLT for African languages remain unfortunately low as most scholars continue to work within the frameworks of knowledge production for an industrial society while the information age dawns. This paper reports the work of African Languages Technology Initiative Alt-i over a five-year period, and thereby presents a proposal for the acceleration of the development of knowledge and skills in HLT for African languages.
The aim of the one-day symposium was to bring together scholars in applied linguistics with an interest in the African languages for the launch of the new AILA Africa regional network. Contributions were in the form of invited research papers from several African countries.
This report focuses on the South African contribution, which highlighted current research into the use and development of the African languages for academic purposes in response to the South African National Language Education Policy South Africa, DoE with its focus on the development of multilingualism in the country. In multilingual situations, language technologies are crucial for providing access to information and opportunities for economic development.
