Edited by author 04-19-2007 10:51 AM
There is a nice article in the Accra weekly, Public Agenda, on women and ICT that discusses advantages of localizing in Ghanaian languages. See:

"ICT Can Transform the Lives of African Women," by Isabella Gyau Orhin, Public Agenda, April 4, 2007
http://allafrica.com/stories/200704090934.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/message/809

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfriL10n.org

Edited by author 03-02-2007 03:30 PM
I made a small change to the group name due to a problem the RSS software had with the "&" in the old name. So Ghanaian languages & ICT is now Ghanaian languages and ICT. Don

Just added some RSS feeds to http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/GH-L10n/L10nForums . It's simple to do now that the necessary add-in to the software has been uploaded.

BTW, the PanAfriL10n site now has over 10K unique hits over about 4 months. Part of that added traffic is related to a workshop on localisation just held in Marrakech.*

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net

* See http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/Marrakech/

Edited by author 01-27-2007 08:51 AM
A "wikigroup" on the PanAfriL10n.org wiki that has a more flexible structure than that set up on the main wiki (see /m69) is at http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/GH-L10n/ . Note that there is space for listings and links in the directory page.

This is intended as a kind of portal and a free space for efforts related to localization in Ghana and use of Ghanaian languages in ICT. It is hoped that, among other things, RSS from this forum and sites such as Kasahorow can be added. It is not intended to take the place of any other resource, but on the contrary raise the profile of Ghanaian efforts.

The PanAfriL10n.org wiki has received about 6000 unique hits over the last 3 months. The hope is that it can facilitate finding information on diverse African localisation efforts (by other African localizers, content developers, policymakers, etc.).

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfrican Localisation project

Ah, nice! In fact Project Nyalasi got kasahorow started by providing the first keyboard input methods that we used.

16 Oct 2006 02:15:52 -0000, QT - BisharatNet
<qtopic+16-9xffAXi7whnv@quicktopic.com>:
>


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

Hey, glad to find this place where you all talk about ghanian langauges.
Ive starded a recent reaserch for finding servel of phrases in 250 languages, among them - Ga, Ewe, Twi, Kasen, Dangme, nzema and gonja.

The phrases are :
-How are you ?
-Thank you.
-I love you.
-What is your name?
-My name is...
-I dont understand.
-Do you speak English?.

Some of those i found already but some not, id love id some of you will the the time and help me find the following :

-How are you ? Dangme, Nzema, Gonja
-Thank you. Nzema, Gonja
-I love you. All of the following languages.
-What is your name? Nzema, Gonja
-My name is... Nzema, Gonja, Twi, Ga
-I dont understand. All of the following languages.
-Do you speak English?. All of the following languages.

Thanks alot in advence any kind of help will be highly aprriciated.

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