{"id":51877,"date":"2021-08-24T22:54:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T03:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=51877"},"modified":"2021-08-24T22:54:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T03:54:36","slug":"creating-scientific-terminology-for-african-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=51877","title":{"rendered":"Creating scientific terminology for African languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article in Nature<\/i><\/p>\r\n

\"African languages to get more bespoke scientific terms<\/a>:\u00a0 Many words common to science have never been written in African languages. Now, researchers from across Africa are changing that\", Sarah Wild, Nature<\/em> 596<\/strong>, 469-470 (August 18, 2021)<\/p>\r\n

doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/d41586-021-02218-x<\/a><\/em><\/p>\r\n

Here are some selected passages:<\/p>\r\n

There\u2019s no original isiZulu word for dinosaur. Germs are called amagciwane<\/i>, but there are no separate words for viruses or bacteria. A quark is ikhwakhi<\/i> (pronounced kwa-ki); there is no term for red shift. And researchers and science communicators using the language, which is spoken by more than 14 million people in southern Africa, struggle to agree on words for evolution.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

IsiZulu is one of approximately 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. Modern science has ignored the overwhelming majority of these languages, but now a team of researchers from Africa wants to change that.<\/p>\r\n

A research project called Decolonise Science<\/a> plans to translate 180 scientific papers from the AfricArXiv preprint server into 6 African languages: isiZulu and Northern Sotho from southern Africa; Hausa and Yoruba from West Africa; and Luganda and Amharic from East Africa.<\/p>\r\n

…<\/p>\r\n

The translated papers will span many disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The project is being supported by the Lacuna Fund, a data-science funder for researchers in low- and middle-income countries. It was launched a year ago by philanthropic and government funders from Europe and North America, and Google.<\/p>\r\n

Languages left behind<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

The lack of scientific terms in African languages has real-world consequences, particularly in education. In South Africa, for example, less than 10% of citizens speak English as their home language, but it is the main teaching language in schools \u2014 something that scholars say is an obstacle to learning science and mathematics.<\/p>\r\n

…<\/p>\r\n

The Decolonise Science project is one of many initiatives that the group is undertaking; others include detecting hate speech in Nigeria and teaching machine-learning algorithms to recognize African names and places.<\/p>\r\n

…<\/p>\r\n

Terminology creation<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Decolonise Science will employ translators to work on papers from AfricArXiv for which the first author is African, says principal investigator Jade Abbott, a machine-learning specialist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Words that do not have an equivalent in the target language will be flagged so that terminology specialists and science communicators can develop new terms. \u201cIt is not like translating a book, where the words might exist,\u201d Abbott says. \u201cThis is a terminology-creating exercise.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

But \u201cwe don\u2019t want to come up with a new word completely\u201d, adds Sibusiso Biyela, a writer at ScienceLink, a science-communication company based in Johannesburg that is a partner in the project. \u201cWe want the person who reads that article or term to understand what it means the first time they see it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

…<\/p>\r\n

Biyela, who writes about science in isiZulu, often derives new terms<\/a> by looking at the Greek or Latin roots of existing scientific words in English. Planet, for example, comes from the ancient Greek plan\u0113t\u0113s<\/i>, meaning \u2018wanderer\u2019, because planets were perceived to move through the night sky. In isiZulu, this becomes umhambi<\/i>, which also means wanderer. Another word for planet, used in school dictionaries, is umhlaba<\/i>, which means \u2018Earth\u2019 or \u2018world\u2019. Other terms are descriptive: for \u2018fossil\u2019, for example, Biyela coined the phrase amathambo amadala atholakala emhlabathini<\/i>, or \u2018old bones found in the ground\u2019.<\/p>\r\n

…<\/p>\r\n

Is this the best way to approach the problem of the lack of scientific terminology in African languages.\u00a0 Have the researchers and activists overlooked something that may facilitate the process?<\/p>\r\n

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Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n