Thursday, January 10, 2008

Facebook Status Day for African Languages

Although the Facebook social networking site clings stubbornly to its English-only interface, it has become wildly popular with college students and twentysomethings worldwide. Among Facebook users are many thousands of African students, whether studying in Africa or at universities abroad.

An African Languages user group on Facebook is working to bring together those who speak and/or have an interest in African languages. Several group projects are anticipated, using the power of the network to enhance the recognition of African languages online and off.

The first group activity is a series of modest awareness-raising events, scheduled for the 15th of every month this year. Members will be posting their "Status" in the African language of their choice, for all their contacts to see and appreciate Africa's many tongues. The first event will occur this Tuesday - you can join the Status Day event by clicking here.


Show your Facebook status in your favorite African Language! 2008 is the International Year of Languages, and the African Languages group on Facebook is celebrating by posting our personal status messages in African languages on the 15th of every month.

Your "status" is the Facebook feature where you can post a simple message about yourself, like "Abdul is happy" or "Betty wishes you a Happy New Year." On Status Day, we'll tell the world how we are in the languages of Africa.

For example, in Swahili: "Mbiha hajambo" (Mbiha is fine), or in Akan: "Akua ho ye" (Akua is fine)

So, on January 15, please join us by saying it in an African Language!

3 comments:

Victor said...


Here
you can find some of my work in software localization in Bambara language, the most spoken mande language of west africa, using the N'ko script.
We are just at the begining of the work, but hope to have some work done before decembre into gnome desktop localization.

Bryce Wesley Merkl said...

For more information and links on the Bambara language, be sure to check out this site:

Bamanankan wiki browser

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