Just came across mention of the Ghana Keyboards site: http://www.ghanakeyboards.com/

Apparently the keyboard effort began under the name "Project Nyalasi." Looks like I missed mention of this on GhanaThink last year.

They also have an Ewe dictionary project.

It would be great to have mention of all of this go to a place where wider audiences will see it. The PanAfriL10n wiki is intended to help in that way with - in the case of Ghana - a page like http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Ghana and the language pages linked to it. Current plans are to link pages like that to a more free form (and semi-independent) set of wiki pages for localization communities, with the advantage that all these can all be searched within the common PanAfrican Localisation wiki. But each page will also serve as a sort of wiki-form gateway page with external links to projects like Kasahowow, Ghanakeyboards, etc. (as well as whatever other useful common interest content is generated. (More info on this soon.)

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Edited by author 10-15-2006 10:26 PM
Thanks Paa Kwesi (re /m67). I'll follow up with him too (he and I have corresponded on some issues, and he has also been in contact with Andrew Cunningham re some aspects of Dagaare and ICT).

By the way I've added a page on Dagaare to the PanAfriL10n wiki at http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Dagaare . Info is still limited at this time. Reason for adding it is that I kept running across mention of it in looking at other lists of major languages in Africa (see http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki....rLoc/MajorLanguages under the summary for 2006).

All the best.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Cc'ed the person I know who works on Dagaare (A B Bodomo, Hong Kong)
On 18 Aug 2006 16:27:58 -0000, QT - BisharatNet
<qtopic+16-9xffAXi7whnv@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>


--
www.kasahorow.com > communicate
< replied-to message removed by QT >

A webiste in Burkina Faso has a page with some Tavultesoft Keyman keyboard layouts for several languages there, of which the Dagaare one might be of interest to any working on Dagaare in Ghana (though I'm not sure the orthography is the same -?). Another area where cross-border communication / harmomization might be of use. See http://www.abcburkina.net/sedelan/contenu/services/edition.html

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Here is the relevant discussion:
http://ghanaconscious.ghanathink.org/node/273

On 8/2/06, paa kwesi imbeah <pki@aya.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Saw that too, and hopefully will get enough community support to get it
> back up and maintained.
>
>
> On 2 Aug 2006 15:24:22 -0000, QT - BisharatNet <qtopic+16-9xffAXi7whnv@quicktopic.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> www.kasahorow.com > communicate
>



--
www.kasahorow.com > communicate
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Saw that too, and hopefully will get enough community support to get it back up and maintained.

On 2 Aug 2006 15:24:22 -0000, QT - BisharatNet <
qtopic+16-9xffAXi7whnv@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>
>



--
www.kasahorow.com > communicate
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Re /m62, a more direct link to the discussion on the fate of ak.wikipedia.org is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_f...e_of_Akan_Wikipedia . Apparently the discussion has been underway for almost 2 months. No clear indication there of when/how a decision will be made.

A similar proposal to close the Ewe Wikipedia has also been made and it is/was a "candidate for speedy deletion." See http://ee.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page ; but the Ewe page is not listed on http://ee.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cand...for_speedy_deletion

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Noting just now on the page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias this item:

Deprecated, moved and other
...
   5. Akan – ak – statistics – all articles – deprecated: Akan is now considered a family of languages. There is a Twi Wikipedia; if you'd like to write articles in another Akan language you can request a new Wikipedia.

I pass this on in case those knowledgeable on the language situation would disagree. (This is the sort of situation one will encounter with a number of African languages - how to treat languages with variant forms, or different languages that are interintelligible.)

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Wikipedia has pages for

• Akan http://ak.wikipedia.org/
• Ewe http://ee.wikipedia.org/
• Twi http://tw.wikipedia.org/
  

Of the three only the Twi one has much content. At some point I imagine someone will want to discuss consolidating content, or at least the structure for content (for sharing or harmonizing certain parts), for the Akan languages (including the Twis and Fante).

It will be interesting to see the evolution of content for crossborder languages like Ewe.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Dear Esi Akoto, Sorry for the lack of reply until now. Aside from what you might find on the web, there is a Yahoogroup dedicated to Twi instruction, and although it is not very active you might ask there for information to see what they provide: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yahoo-cls-Twi-classes/

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

Me kyia mo nyina!

I am an African American and an AVID student of the Twi language and Akan culture. Thank you for leading me to the online Twi dictionary at Kasahorow. I'm interested in learning anything I can about Twi and the Akan people.

Meda mo ase.

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Would there be any interest in organizing a Ghanaian localization meeting/workshop in 2006 (which is the Year of African Languages, by the way)? The focus would be FOSS and ongoing or potential translations into Ghanaian languages. Naturally such an event would be at the initiative of one or more groups within Ghana, but if there is need for technical support, facilitators, or (dare I mention it) funding, then I'd be willing to help source those.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfrican Localisation Project

On the topic of locales:

Paa Kwesi and GhanaThink have an OpenOffice locale filed and also listed at http://kasa.ghanathink.org/locales/akan

I understand from Dwayne Bailey, co-facilitator (with Simos Xenitelis) of the localization track at Africa Source 2 http://wiki.africasource2.tacticaltech.org...in/02byGhqKUCvtkqTo that one of the Ghanaian participants there was also working on a locale for Twi.

Interfacing these two wold seem logical, but the issue of wider or more narrow locales (that is wider for an interintelligible language group such as Akan, or more specific such as separate ones for Twi, Fante, etc.) is one that will be faced by a number of languages in Africa.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net