Multi-lingual Computing
Focus On Africa
What is the source of the problem?
- Lack of adequate technnical support for software and hardware once purchased.
- % of people trained formally v/s those who are actual end users of the software do not balance.
- English is a second or even third language in most cases therefore problems arise in troubleshooting and occasional maintenance of software.
- Most computer companies (manufacturers & developers) do not have branches
in Africa making system support difficult.
Being from Kenya, I decided to draw from examples of my own experiences.
Problem Areas
- Due to economic reasons, computers are introduced at college level and even then, more in the context of computer theory.
- Most graduates, even in Computer Science, are challenged with working on a computer in detail for thew first time in a job environment.
- There are regular problems translating and or understanding technical terms
such as "memory allocation errors"
Languge Barrier?
Having spoken to many students and adults, the language is not a problem when it comes to using software in the workplace. The problem is in communicating with the masses. The masses understand swahili better than they do English therefore, to introduce the masses to computing, do we start with improving their English or develop software that supports the use of local languages? Here are some general
statistics on Kenya and
examples of the number of Languages Spoken.
What approaches can be taken to solve some of these problems?
- Develop language translators and multilingual word processors.
- Develop international/standardised technical terms computing that can be incorporated into a computer science curriculumn regardless of language.
- Develop software and machine language if neccessary in other languages.
I think the first point is what seems currently feasible.
Some Interesting Developments
This is some of the stuff I found interesting and where I think we can find solutions:-
To my Home-Page.
