Download - Российский комитет Программы ЮНЕСКО ...

136
Tunde ADEGBOLA
Director, African Languages Technology Initiative
(Lagos, Nigeria)
Multilingualism, Multimedia and Orature in the Information Age:
Using Multimedia to Include Oral Cultures in Cyberspace
One of the advantages of digital technology is that it facilitates access to
information in various forms and modes. This could be in the form of sounds
such as speech or music and in the visual forms such as written texts as well
as static images and motion pictures. The presentation of information in these
various forms is what we now refer to collectively as multimedia. The relevance
of digital technology to modern use of multimedia stems from the fact that the
digital approach to the representation of natural reality offers uniformity in the
storage, processing and retrieval of information on the same hardware by the use
of appropriate software. This leads to economy of scale and many other benefits.
The development of writing is a great mile stone in human civilization. Writing
as a means of documenting human thought offers efficiency, portability and
permanence. Writing is efficient in the sense that large volumes of information
can be stored within relatively small volumes of media space, hence offering
great advantages in the storage space of written ideas. It is portable in the sense
that written texts can be moved to locations other than the one occupied by the
producer of the idea and it can be at more than one location at the same time.
Finally, written texts are said to be permanent in the sense that spoken words,
fizzling into thin air after they have been uttered, when written, remain available
for consultation for as long as the media on which they are written survive.
Writing has enhanced the production and management of information and
knowledge, providing means for productive storage, retrieval, transfer and
dissemination. From the humble beginnings of the documentation of human
experiences in cave drawings, totem poles and other semiotic endeavors to the
precursors of the present information revolution facilitated by Gutenberg’s
printing technology, mankind has benefited immensely from the improved
capacity for the storage, retrieval, transfer and dissemination of information
and knowledge.
Unfortunately however, not all the languages spoken in the world today have
been reduced to writing. Furthermore, writing present a steep learning curve
particularly for adult learners who did not get the opportunity to learn to read
and write as children. Hence there are many segments of our so-called global
information society in which a significant number of people still do not have the