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. Among the first was a season of the TV show “24.”
If you have an iPhone, tweeting and e-mailing in N
’Ko is now easy. Eatoni, a company based in Manhat
tan that has created software for cellphone keyboa
rds in some 300 languages, released an N’Ko app ea
rlier this year. The iPhone keyboard app works on
the iPad too. Eatoni’s C.E.O., Howard Gutowitz, de
veloped it after months of tests and advice from T
raore, Diane and other N’Ko users. But iPhones are
too expensive to be widely used in rural Africa.
Almost every African villager owns or aspires to o
wn a conventional cellphone (equipped with only a
number pad) — even if he or she has to travel to t
own to charge it.
Africa is the world’s fastest-growing cellphone ma
rket. Texting allows farmers to check crop prices.
Nurses can send health information. People can do
their banking. With airtime prohibitively expensi
ve, texting is the preferred mode of communication
. “Text messages would be a lifesaving tool for us
in Guinea,” Traore said. He also says he believes
that the ability to text in their own language wo
uld give people a powerful reason to learn to read
. “Before, men in my village used to brag about th
eir wristwatches,” Traore said. “Now they brag abo
ut their cellphones.” When he shows N’Ko speakers
his iPhone and tells them, “This is your language,
” they are dumbstruck. An N’Ko newspaper published
in Conakry, Guinea’s capital, recently crowed: “D
on’t look for N’Ko under a cabbage leaf any more.
It’s on the iPhone now.”
Those old cellphones don’t have apps, of course. Y
ou use the language the phone comes with; in West
Africa, that is French. The market for an N’Ko pho
ne would be, potentially, tens of millions of peop
le. But getting manufacturers to add new alphabets
to cellphones isn’t easy. Gutowitz has had a long
and frustrating experience trying to do so. “Most
manufacturers roll their eyes,” he said. “I spent