“The dislocation of our languages is perpetuated by not having pride to speak one’s own mother tongue. We can only say a language is developed when it has doctors, professors, writers and artists who write down their work, poems and songs in isiNdebele. I am grateful for the support and efforts to develop our language to be an equal to others.”
These were the words of His Majesty iNgwenyama Makhosonke II, King of the Ndebele Kingdom. He joined other dignitaries at the launch of a new collaborative initiative by the North-West University’s (NWU’s) South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), Wikipedia, and Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB). This initiative – the SWiP project – is aimed at promoting indigenous South African languages on Wikipedia.
isiNdebele has been selected as the pilot language for the project, since it is currently one of the indigenous African languages that seriously lack content representation on the free encyclopedia platform.
In his address at the launch event on 20 September 2023 at UNISA’s Muckleneuk Campus in Pretoria, the king gave a brief history on amaNdebele in his mother tongue and highlighted the Ndebele Kingdom’s contribution to the SWiP project.
Vusi Mtsweno, Gauteng Province Language Committee member for isiNdebele, and Mmasibidi Setaka, a digital humanities researcher in Sesotho at SADiLaR, directed the event programme.
‘Create the content you want the world to see’
In her welcome address, Prof Zodwa Motsa Madikane, UNISA’s vice principal for teaching, learning, community engagement and student support, expressed her delight at the project.
“We are a diverse people in South Africa. I am delighted about this project that brings forth one of my oldest dreams to see African languages marry technology,” she said. “As UNISA, we pride ourselves in all the official languages of the land, and I am overjoyed to see technology give space to our languages.”
Prof Langa Khumalo, executive director of SADiLaR, said that it was very symbolic to have the entire Royal House of the Ndebele Kingdom at the launch to celebrate the elevation of a language that has been missing from the global community of languages.
“Today we are celebrating the elevation of isiNdebele into the community of languages that sits in the cyber infrastructure. We are challenging the speakers of the language to create the content they want the world to see in isiNdebele. It is up to us to start thinking about our languages first: how they communicate our world view; how they represent our culture; and how they advance our human progress. We can never innovate anything as long as we use European languages as additional languages.”
Advancing all of SA’s indigenous languages online
While the SWiP launch event shone a spotlight specifically on isiNdebele to encourage the Ndebele people to actively participate in contributing content to Wikipedia, the SWiP project is aimed at promoting all of South Africa’s indigenous languages online.
It does so by bringing together communities of indigenous language users and giving them the skills to create and review content on Wikipedia. In doing so, they collectively increase their respective languages’ digital footprint.
“We have to reimagine the way we are teaching African languages, and the way we are training graduates for the future,” said Prof Khumalo. “Our country has excellent language policy frameworks, but these legislative pieces haven't yet enabled real transformation. Let us unlock the knowledge in our languages and share it, so that the world can be better.
“You yourself have to stop and say: I think in my mother tongue, I dream in my mother tongue, I teach in my mother tongue, and I innovate in my mother tongue. During heritage month, let us be reminded that our culture is not only something from the past: it is a lived culture in the present, and it should continue to be so in the future.”
‘Just start writing’
Bobby Shabangu, president of Wikimedia ZA - which is responsible for the South African chapter of Wikimedia - said it is a pity that the digital footprint of South Africa’s indigenous languages, and indeed African languages as a whole, is almost non-existent.
He added that there currently is a very small number of people in South Africa who contribute to Wikipedia. “With SWiP, we want to change that by building an active community of Wikipedia contributors that also includes members from the underrepresented communities, for instance women and the LGBTQI+.
“We will be running training workshops of two to three days at a number of universities across South Africa. This will involve registering for a Wikipedia account, learning about creating and editing content on Wikipedia and its rules, and enabling the Wikipedia translation tool where participants can proofread and correct translations.”
Dr Friedel Wolff, technical manager at SADiLaR, added that the project’s objective is to provide the building blocks and train indigenous language speakers to contribute content to Wikipedia as writers, editors and also as trainers.
‘For a language to flourish, it must be actively used’
chief executive officer of PanSALB Lance Schultz emphasised the importance of being intentional in preserving South Africa’s indigenous languages and developing a digital footprint for them. “For a language to flourish, it must be actively used. One cannot separate the development of a language from its usage. Since younger people primarily access media digital, creating an online presence is crucial for the survival of our languages.” *The SWiP project launch was livestreamed on YouTube. Watch the recording here.
