Hi Don,

I can't comment on the feasibility, although I assume that it comes down to how many confusable words would be present in Hausa.

Such a tool if feasible would be useful for converting existing data into the standard orthography, and would allow the conversion of a large amount of material.

But I'd be reluctant to use it as a tool for creating new content.

The way I see it, such a tool would be a stop gap measure. A more important issue is the creation of standards compliant web sites and web services in Hausa (using the correct orthography).

Hausa doesn't need smart fonts, it doesn't use complex rendering like numerous African languages, and form the point of view of languages in developing countries in other parts of the world processing Hausa is simple. From the point of view of fonts and input systems, Hausa is an easy language to accommodate on computers.

The question is how do Hausa web developers move forward? And what are the currently blockages? Since the blockages to developing web pages and displaying websites in Hausa aren't technically based?

Andj.

Hi Andrew, Belated thanks for this feedback /m109 . You raise some interesting points. In principle, as you note, getting Hausa Boko right on computers and the web is not at all complicated technically.

A tool for correcting ASCII versions of Hausa would be useful. Using that for new content when users could just compose with the extended characters (the hooked letters) would be a fallback. For the latter, maybe the hurdle is the lack of a keyboard standard that is widely known and available.

Don

I haven't had the chance yet to look at the following, but pass it on now. (Thanks to Rui Correia for forwarding)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: google.public.translators group <noreply@googlegroups.com>
Date: 4 Nov 2007 09:02
 
* Google in Hausa help! - 1 new
  http://groups.google.com/group/google.publ.../t/08f486863f2ab46b
 
-----------------------------
I tried myself to translate Google in Hausa but still a lot work to do, so
please do something if you think you are concerned. Thank you very much. - Sat
3 Nov 2007 20:53
1 message, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/google.publ.../t/08f486863f2ab46b

Where I can find good quality films?
Can anyone help me?

Edited by author 11-17-2007 11:59 AM
Re /m112, if you are looking for quality films in Hausa, you might try asking on the Finafinan_Hausa list at http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/Finafinan_Hausa/

The H-Hausa list at http://www.h-net.org/~hausa/ is also an excellent place for general information and might provide answers.

This forum, Hausa charsets and keyboards, focuses on Hausa language on computers and the internet (and mobile devices). There are some other links of possible interest in Hausa mentioned below in /m58.

Hope this helps.

Several Nokia mobile phone models apparently have text menu support in Hausa. Does anyone have any experience with using this? How good is it?

See http://www.panafril10n.org/wikidoc/pmwiki.php/PanAfrLoc/Nokia for a list of models.

TIA for any info.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfriL10n.org

Edited by author 11-23-2007 01:00 PM
During the last four weeks there has been a discussion about keyboard layouts on the a12n-collaboration list. The main topic is plans by the One Laptop Per Child project for a multilingual keyboard for its "XO" laptop. The keyboard layout would be intended to support languages of Nigeria (including Hausa) or the whole of West Africa.

If you are interested, see http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/pu...a12n-collaboration/ (Note- this list is not an official OLPC forum)

The OLPC layouts are shown at:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:WAfrica-Alt-1.png
&
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Nigeria_Keyboard

See also /m96

Don

very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce

Re /m116, thanks for your comment but please be more specific about what you find fault with. Thanks in advance. Don

The One Laptop Per Child project (see /m96 & /m115) has a page for people who want to work on localization at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pootle#Sign-up . For languages like Hausa not yet in the table, it looks like you will have to add appropriate rows in order to enter your name.

Note link to their page on Hausa.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net
PanAfriL10n.org

A reply to a blog posting I wrote on machine translation (MT) at http://donosborn.org/blog/2008/06/30/parad...achine-translation/ mentioned that "Language Weaver (MT company) has a Hausa-English engine..." I have been trying to track down information on that, and any help would be of interest.

I did find a notice from Language Weaver last September that I was unaware of (in an old ad on http://www.translationdirectory.com/transl...ranslation_jobs.php , where they did not delete the it as requested since the job is over):

Source language: Hausa
Target language: English

Details of the project: 100,000 words of articles in Hausa from international news sources (BBC World Svc, Deutsche Welle, VOA, etc) as well as national news sites (Gaskiya, Nigerian Newsday.) We are willing to divide the job over several translators if you want to do only a portion of the work.

We will pay 10 cents per source word. Deadline for completed translation: Oct 11.

We need a simple, direct translation without localization. The results will be used as a reference for testing the performance of an automated translation system.

Special requirements to the applicants: To determine the quality of your work, we will provide a 9-sentences sample article for you to translate and return to us.

Deadline for applying: 9/21/07

Delete this ad from the site soon after the deadline for applying

Barbara Blankenship
Language Weaver, Inc
USA

Language Weaver's site is http://www.languageweaver.com

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net