Article,
The Role of the Computer in the Development of African Languages
Babel: Revue internationale de la traduction/International Journal of Translation, (2002)
Abstract
Over the years various African linguists and educationalists have expressed the need for the development of all African languages without a writing culture. Of recent, a number of changes in the direction of linguistic research and other social and political changes have added to the urgency for the development of these languages. This paper re-examines that need in the light of recent developments. It presents that current research within Chomsky's generative grammar paradigm, seeks to determine the principles that are universal to all languages of the world, and that this necessitates an a priori analysis of these languages for such a goal to be attained. In addition, the development of these languages would attract the translation of useful literature on current developments in the fields of agriculture and public health in particular, from English, French, German, etc. into these African languages. Two areas where the computer is shown to be very handy are the grouping of nouns into their proper classes (for those languages that make use of the noun class system) and lexicographic or terminological compilation. The speed and accuracy of the computer are especially useful in such an endeavour.
