Linda Martindale
Using a computer is daunting enough for beginners, especially if you are forced to do it in a language that is not your own. But last week South African firm Translate.org.za released the entire computing experience in Xhosa, covering the full desktop, Web browser, word processor, spreadsheet and e-mail application.
The programmes have been translated to run on Linux, the open source software that is rapidly gaining inroads in the computing world.
The great divide between the computer-literate and those whose circumstances have rendered them untutored is threatening to become wider as technology races on and many South Africans are left behind.
“The translation does not remove all barriers to computer access but it helps to eliminate one,” says Dwayne Bailey, founder and director of Translate.org.za.
“This together with low-cost computers, open source software and low-cost Internet access will go a long way to making a dramatic IT impact on South Africans, especially the poor.”
Obsidian Systems, a Linux support and development company, developed and sponsored this project, which the Shuttleworth Foundation has committed to funding.
Such translation has only just begun to scratch the surface of endless opportunity in computer accessibility. The next steps are Mozilla, the cross-platform open source browser, and OpenOffice (previously known as StarOffice) and a Xhosa spell checker, as well as various tutorials and help manuals.
Translate.org.za’s eventual goal is to make computers accessible in all of the 11 official languages of South Africa, with Zulu being the second step in the process.
Being non-profit, the continuation of the project will depend on the users as opposed to the software company, says Bailey. Even if other commercial word processors were translated, the people most likely to be affected by this would probably not be able to pay the licensing costs.
Translate.org.za will work closely with Linuxlab.org.za, which is an effort to provide disadvantaged schools with refurbished computers and freely available software.
Learning the computer lingo in one’s mother tongue could make the difference between computer literacy and ongoing mass exclusion of many from the IT world.
Lead translator Nolwando Dekeni is aware of the value and effect of this. “Many young people will be able to use computers in the future because of this project.
“My son, Lubabalo, who is 14 years old and attends a school in Khayelitsha, is just one South African who will benefit. I am confident that it will help equip him for life in the 21st century.”