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Factors Militating Against the Presence of African Languages in Cyberspace
There are many factors militating against the presence of African languages in
cyberspace. Major of them include:
• The lack of political will to put in place effective language policies in
Africa;
• The lack of proper regulations favouring African languages;
• The lack of human and financial resources;
• The lack of effective training programmes that are informed by the
African linguistic mosaic referred to above;
• The lack of incentives, user-friendly as well as practical programmes
offered in the institutions of higher learning;
• The work to foster the presence of African languages in cyberspace is
generally inspired by business interests, including competition that
neither leaves space for experience sharing and cross-fertilization of
ideas nor properly takes into account the African linguistic mosaic; and
• The content of the African languages present in cyberspace tends to
be confined to non-standardised translation engines and programmes.
African decision makers have not yet gone beyond making ambiguous
statements on language policies to which very often they pay leap service. This
may explain why most constitutions of African countries contain varied clauses
on the status of African languages. The constitution of the newly independent
South Sudan is the very epitome of what is stated here. In its Part 1, article 6,
clauses 1 and 2 on languages 26 it states that:
(1) All indigenous languages of South Sudan are national languages
and shall be respected, developed and promoted.
(2) English shall be the official working language in the Republic
of South Sudan, as well as the language of instruction at all levels
of education.
As is well know there is no better way to foster the development of a language
than using it as a medium of instruction. The exclusion of African languages
from the education system makes it difficult to pass regulations in favour of
developing African languages and to accord them a proper place in cyberspace.
Returning to the training aspect, apart from lucking lustre, most programmes on
computational linguistics institutions of higher learning offer across Africa do not
26
The Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, Government of South Sudan, Page 13.
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