Athchomar chomakea everyone! Do not be shocked, these two words are from the Dothraki artificial language used to say “hello” to non-Dothraki people. I know for sure that no one is a Dothraki here. Are you? “taH pagh taHbe’. DaH mu’tlheghvam vIqelnIS”. This beautiful sentence is in Klingon language for Hamlet’s famous line, “To be …
Read moreUnderstanding artificial languages and how to create one?
« Qui fait ça ? Faut pas fasser hein, nous s’amuser », ça c’est une phrase en nouchi. Le nouchi est un argot populaire créé et parlé en Côte d’Ivoire, pays situé en Afrique de l’Ouest. C’est l’un des pays d’Afrique linguistiquement hétérogène où aucune de ses langues locales ne sert de moyen de communication interethnique. Dans …
Read moreLe nouchi, future langue nationale de Côte d’Ivoire ?
L’Afrique est un cas particulièrement intéressant quant à ses dynamiques sociolinguistiques et linguistiques, car elle est le berceau d’un tiers des langues parlées sur notre planète, soit 2,158 langues indigènes. Selon Emmanuel Gabriel, fondateur d’OpenBinacle:« plus de 52 langues autochtones d’Afrique ont disparu et n’ont pas de locuteurs natifs ». Parmi les raisons de la …
Have you ever heard of the NJUU language? Did you know that this language has only one remaining fluent speaker today? Do you know where it is spoken? Njuu language is the sole survivor of the Tuu cluster of San languages spoken in South Africa. It is considered the original language of South Africa. This …
Read moreHow to prevent African minority languages from extinction?
Culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original peoples are defined as indigenous. Among indigenous peoples are the Mayas, Lakota, Pygmies of Central Africa, the Maasai tribe from East Africa, the Berbers …
Read moreMost African Indigenous Languages are on the Brink of becoming Extinct by 2100
Nowadays, quite a number of Ivorian parents whose children were born in capital cities are worried about their children’s inability to speak their native languages. It is quite common now to see children who cannot even have a simple conversation in their dialect, while it is a critical way of preserving their culture and identity …
Read more5 Tips to get your child to love and speak your mother tongue
We live in an era driven by technology whereby everything in the world needs to be digitized in order to be used, promoted and to grow. This also applies to languages, in the sense that they’re being digitized to facilitate and increase their use in the world. A study affirms that it is estimated that …
Read moreDeveloping and using African indigenous languages in the digital age
The role of a publisher in the dissemination of thought cannot be overemphasised, and the immortalization of one’s literary work is a dream of every writer. For a second, just imagine the inexistence of a publisher: knowledge would have been a scarce commodity. Publishers are not just business gurus, but important agents of change who …
Read more5 Strategies that African Publishers can use to promote African Languages more effectively
Language is defined as a structured system of communication. In communicating, we have the opportunity to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, etc. More than just communicating; language and culture have an almost unbreakable and intricate bond. As we know, language is always linked to a group of people. This explains the notion that to better …
Read more4 Critical Reasons Why Every African Must Know Their Native Language Now
Africa is the second-largest continent in the world after Asia and is the most multilingual continent in the world. Whereas world linguistic surveys point to growing language rationalization and a decline in the number of living languages, African languages continue to reproduce and generate ever-new dialects and lingua francas. According to the African Language Program …
Read more5 Technological Solutions enhancing the access and use of African languages