Swahili makes history as first African language recognized by Twitter
Most African languages for the past decade and over of
social media platform Twitter’s existence have been referred to as
Indonesian in terms of translation.
That has changed with Twitter’s official recognition of
Swahili as a language. It became the first African language to achieve
that accomplishment. Swahili is however yet to be added in the language
settings of Twitter.
The network now recognizes Swahili words and offers translation of
the widely spoken and written East and Southern African language.
Since last week, Twitter kick started detection of the language in
tweets and subsequently offers a close to perfect translation as with
most other foreign languages.
Kenya Ministry of Sports and Heritage joined Twitter users to
celebrate the feat. “Kiswahili which is widely used in East Africa, is
Kenya’s national language & it unites the people of Kenya,” the
tweet said in part.
TWITTER RECOGNISES SWAHILI AS A LANGUAGE:— Ministry of Sports and Heritage (@moscakenya) May 7, 2018
USA based social networking site Twitter recently added the capability to detect Swahili words in tweets & to translate them. Kiswahili which is widely used in East Africa, is Kenya's National language & it unites the people of Kenya. pic.twitter.com/TMzgWU1IXu
Arriving at the feat, however, did not come easy as Kenyans – known
to be vibrant on the platform staged protests with the
hashtags #SwahiliIsNotIndonesian and #TwitterRecognizeSwahili.
But like all google translate efforts, some translations have fallen
short of the import of what is meant. But for all it is worth, it
positions Swahili as a fore runner in the area.
Records indicate that the language is spoken by 50 million plus
people especially in East Africa – it is listed as national language of:
Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda. People in parts of the DR Congo also speak it.
Hausa is now on Facebook hit "so" if you think it is a good thing. [That would be "like" for any non-Hausa speakers] https://t.co/61dMvhl55F— africanews (@africanews) August 2, 2016
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