Why are African languages Termed Vernacular
[Music]
sanu
there’s one expression i’ve gone
appealing since i joined
secondary school
i not been able to accept it it’s
exception
that describe the skuma language
as vernacular language this is a
language spoken by
my family
[Music]
i’ve always wondered since then why
is my language being described
as vernacular
i came to realize it was because
of colonialism
colonelism came to africa
and one of the remaining symptoms of
this project
was turning africans
against their own languages their own
cultures
and traditions as a village boy
in school i’ve always been seen as an
outcast
because when i speak my english which i
wanted to learn
it has always had an effect of the tribe
language i come from
so i never had an english which was more
beautiful with an english accent and so
whenever i speak you’ll see
these guys from the village
and i kept asking myself
why is a language
in africa was called vernacular
to serve the purpose of communication
and
expanding the colonel project
but even though after so many years of
grenadine
most african families has driven away
from respecting loving and appreciating
their languages i was born
in a family whereby my parents were
never
divorced so i lived from foster family
to foster family and to my grandmother
who
loved kuma language so you will never
say shikamo
never said anything you have to speak in
our own language so i grew up
loving the same language
but even though i love this language
at school for me
to pass for me to be seen as intelligent
as smart i must be able to speak english
the measure of my intelligence was
english
this really stopped me because i know
many
people i’ve met in europe in china who
can’t speak my language
but i can speak theirs so who’s
intelligent
i learned that
african language we are only seen as a
dialect
suitable for original language and not
been suitable
to be named the national language
and this has caused many governments to
ignore our own languages
it has transcended to
how innovation enterpreneurship
literature history and politics have
been shaped in africa
africa innovation and a science and
technology has been ignored
because africa became a recipient of
solutions
taking out technology from abroad
these technologies came with a manual
written in the language of the corneal
master
even if that solution was so important
for my grammar in the village
it could never be put in my local
language
we talk about human centered design
all most of these technologies have been
developed designed not with my
grandmother in the mind because
she doesn’t know english plus in
australia so
is the solution you’re building for her
oh we are forced to submit because we
have no option
how many of you by the way of hand have
allowed here
by google map just raise your hand go go
up
i’m very fascinated in the same time i
have so much grievance around
when you use google map
google will speak to you the machine
learning and the ai will speak to you
in english accent and this is makuti and
they’ll say
makuti omakute like the the
accent of our names for geographic areas
are not
well pronounced but we can pronounce
well
the geographic locations of their names
or locations when
we are in those areas or countries today
in 2020 machine learning
artificial intelligence are being
trained to have
capabilities cognitive abilities to be
able
to serve the human race best
smart homes is an area of interest for
me
whereby homes are being built with a
smart mindset
and a smart approach whereby a house a
door
can have a voice assistance
that allows to a communication between
the house owner or the guest and the
speaker
and services will be rendered if you
speak with that particular
technology or device
in 2018 on my way from finland from
slash
i bought three
smart speakers alexa and two google
homes and i installed my house
kitchen all the place and i wanted to
learn and speak to them during research
and every time you speak to these
devices you’ll be told
i didn’t hear that what do you say
i didn’t quite get that i’m not i just
said
play music you know and i learned
these technologies were never built for
africa
for me for us
they are built for europe america market
but we
want those technologies right
i learned artificial intelligence and
machine learning
has more capacity and capability
to create impact at an individual level
family level and national level beyond
that
our intelligence can actually bring joy
into somebody’s lives
because in africa
the time one of my company was
struggling i talked to my uncle
what i was facing and i was very upset
and i was i think i was going
through a assessment of black and he was
like young man toughen up toughen up
dropping in in the back of my my my back
like
he didn’t care that how he’s actually
having a seal as mental
uh struggle because you raise a baby and
you see your baby
dying in front of your eyes but then i
learned
what if i could speak to a smart speaker
about my issues
but i have to use english french german
japanese or chinese
eight months ago
i decided to work on africa first
smart speaker called kaya
kaya the soil word meaning
home and i wanted to work on this idea
or technology
to build the first african hence free
smart speaker
that not only accompany
african languages but also our accent
on how we pronounce and how we speak to
the speaker
i had a partner from san francisco
invest the two professors and
uh some partner who was from tanzania
live in san francisco
and i flew from tanzania san francisco
opened my company in silicon valley
and not here that’s discussion for the
time
and now for eight months we’ve been
building machinery learning
intelligence testing our languages we’ve
worked with
three languages yoluba languages zulu
language swahili language
and i believe is that smart speaker
or artificial intelligence is in a fancy
term
at this point in time these are crucial
innovation
to help people to create impact and joy
into humans life
our angle one of our angle is
how do we support young people in africa
to deal with mental health
many people in africa struggle with
diseases
for example aids it’s a taboo to speak
to anyone if you have this kind of
disease
but what if you could speak to a speaker
that has been trained and able to guide
you through
your process how you take your meals
your medicine
and just your general health development
in nigeria for example two hundred
population people
eight seven percent of these people
young people are struggling to access
universal education
how do we teach the next africa
generation
if we don’t have enough classes
can we partner with trusty lobby
to put a calls on finance on our speaker
and kids could learn
on her voice in a training using this
kind of technologies
this became the passion of mine been
working and
like any european language which has
been digitized
i strongly believe that african language
it’s time for african innovators to
stand up
recognize our mindset and innovate
for our people innovate for us
you know what i mean for us you know i
don’t mean african being a kara
you could be chinese and you’re african
at heart but how do we really build
solutions that bring on board
people that need solutions
not at the money perspective but as as
an impact perspective how do we build
solutions and technologies that have the
user
in mind
today swahili
is one of the most spoken language in
africa
but still most innovators in africa
ignore to build the technologies with
swahili being the first language of
instruction
or use in those technologies at least in
early century south africa has approved
to be one of the national languages
but every africa ecosystem have been
innovators are building technologies
applications using portuguese flange
english these are legacies of colonism
and i think it’s time that we stand up
to build technologies
that defines who we are
and appreciate the diversity in our
culture
traditions and language is
beautiful as part of the society
of this beautiful world thank you