Ugandans to search web content in local languages

Source: Ultimate Media

You know how to read and write in your local language, but you have been unable to use or search for information on the web because all search engine tools are in English? Not anymore.

A team of scientists and linguists from Makerere University and Rhodes University have developed the first ever Luganda search engine that will enable people to search for information on the web in Luganda, Uganda’s mostly used language.

The Luganda search engine was launched at Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology with a promise that other Ugandan languages will soon have their own search engines.

Prof. Venacious Baryamureba, the Dean of the Makerere’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology says that other Ugandan languages will also get their search engines in order to enable people who don’t know English to be able to search and receive information on the world wide web.

The local language search engine software is a result of tiresome efforts of a team from the two universities led by Dr. Lorenzo Dalvit which used Luganda dictionary words to translate from English the search commands and prompts.

Dr. Lorenzo who is the coordinator of SANTED (South African-Norway Tertiary Education Development) says through non-profit translation project Translate.org.za they are making indigenous African languages visible on the world wide web.

He described it as a dream come true, saying by not being exposed to one’s own language in writing or computer technology, one begins to undermine a big part of one’s identity.

Join the Mozilla Translators

REGISTER TO PARTICIPATE IN THE TRANSLATION OF FIREFOX MOZILLA TO LUGANDA

The Faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University (CIT) in collaboration with the Rhodes University, South Africa are organizing a 2-day long translation marathon called “translate@thon at makerere”. The aim of this event is to translate Firefox Mozilla, an internet browser, into the Luganda language so that it can be more accessible to non-English speakers. This is to invite volunteer translators to register and participate in this exercise. Preferred candidates are those who are already computer literate and with a reasonable understanding of the Luganda vocabulary / language.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Global, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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