ImTranslator.net has an online translation utility that can translate between Hausa and several other languages (although Hausa is not listed among the languages available for translation on their homepage). For English <-> Hausa, see:

• http://imtranslator.net/translation/english/to-hausa/translation/
• http://imtranslator.net/translation/hausa/to-english/translation/
  

I cannot review the quality of translations beyond some individual words, but did notice that the Hausa output uses digraphs with apostrophes instead of the hooked letters. The word "ɗaya" is shown as "d'aya" for example. Going the other way, one can apparently input either Boko or ASCIIfied Hausa or ASCII with apostrophes and get the same result ("ɗaya", "d'aya" and "daya" are translated as "one"). Not sure what happens inputting ASCIIfied only for words with with different meanings spelled with the hooked letter on the one hand and the plain Latin letter on the other.

Quick looks at pairs with other languages: French looked okay; Chinese simplified did not work, but traditional did, with one small error: Arabic did but dropped one word.

ImTranslator is evidently set up to use diverse MT (machine translation) programs, but only Babylon works for Hausa. Made a quick check on Babylon's online translation page, but did not find Hausa among the options.

Other African languages on ImTranslator include Afrikaans, Arabic, and Swahili. I expect however that in the next few years we'll see more MT programs for more major African languages offered by this and other organizations.

Noted with interest a news item in the Vanguard entitled "AUN students develop apps for teaching Hausa, Fulfulde languages" (1 Sept. 2015). The article quotes Dr Margee Ensign, Vice-Chancellor, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, as saying:

"We have a programme called Student Empowerment through Language, Literacy and Arithmetic (STELLA) where all our students are teaching vulnerable people how to read.

"Our Computer Science students have written apps for teaching Hausa and Fulfulde because people want to learn in their mother tongues."

I've requested more information on this particular project. It seems to me that Africa, with its many languages, is well placed to take a leading role in multilingual uses of computers and the internet for education, development, and research. Linking computer science and linguistic specializations at universities such as AUN would be a key part of making that happen.

Hausa charsets and keyboards was set up exactly 14 years ago. Many topics have been touched on and a number of resources discussed. Most of the activity was in the first few years. I'll post separately on reasons for maintaining this message board.

The advantage of this board format is the ease in accessing and posting, with the option but not necessity to subscribe. The disadvantage is that there is no search mechanism to find specific topics of interest. To assist, I put together an index in /m37, revised in /m56, which I have updated below. Another search option is to select to display all messages and then do a screen search for keywords.

Don Osborn
Bisharat.Net

Some of the topics covered so far on
Hausa charsets & keyboards

This message board - reason for and goals of establishing & maintaining; name /m1 /m2 /m12 /m47 /m99 /m137

Chat /m55 /m59
Conferences /m91
Diacritics (accents etc.) /m23 /m24 /m26 /m27
Dictionaries on-line /m21
Dictionaries, user/custom /m94
E-mail & e-mail lists /m16 /m54 /m55 /m57 /m58
Fonts /m10 /m13 /m15 /m25 /m26 /m33 /m34 /m35 /m73
Fonts – info on setting up /m6
Fonts driven from website /m9 /m10
Hausa Ajami script /m3 /m4 /m17 /m46 /m66
Hausa language resources /m3 /m11 /m21 /m48 /m75 /m76 /m87 /m97 /m98 /m105 /m106 /m144
Hausa Latin script extended/special characters /m40 /m41 /m42 /m45 /m48 /m70 /m78 /m144
Hausa Latin script extended/special characters (apostrophe as letter) /m40 /m41 /m42 /m45 /m48 /m53
Hausa Latin script extended/special characters (display of) /m9 /m10 /m13 /m19 /m21 /m23 /m24 /m43
Hausa Latin script extended/special characters (ts ligation) /m69 /m70
Hausa Latin script origins /m3
Keyboards – "Hausa 1" & "Hausa 2" /m25 /m30 /m36
Keyboards - key functions (incl. decimal input) /m29 /m30 /m32 /m36 /m74
Keyboards – Konyin /m61 /m71 /m89
Keyboards - layouts, Keyman /m25 /m27 /m30 /m36
Keyboards - layouts, Mac & iOS /m62 /m64 /m141 /m142 /m143
Keyboards - layouts, MSKLC /m88
Keyboards - layouts, NITDA /m93
Keyboards - layouts, OLPC /m115
Keyboards - standardization /m29 /m30 /m32
Keyboards – virtual, graphics tablet /m67 /m68
Keyboards – virtual, popup (on-screen) /m7 /m23 /m43
Keyboards – virtual, soft (touch screen) /m22 /m140 /m141 /m142 /m143
Keyboards (other) /m72 /m73 /m125 /m136
Language policy /m29
Letter database, mapping tables /m26 /m31 /m33 /m36 /m40
Linux /m3 /m6 /m8
Literacy in Hausa (and web content) /m60
Locales for Hausa /m133
Macintosh computers /m3 /m4 /m62 /m64
Mobile devices w/ support for Hausa /m114
Other languages - Arabic /m6 /m142 /m144
Other languages - Bambara /m2 /m4 /m15 /m29
Other languages - Dinka /m27 /m29
Other languages - Fulfulde/Pular /m2 /m4 /m19 /m21 /m33
Other languages - Gikuyu /m108
Other languages - Igbo /m94 /m126 /m144
Other languages - Kanuri /m33
Other languages - South African /m18 /m19 /m20 /m29
Other languages - Tamashek /m33
Other languages – Yoruba /m22 /m26 /m94 /m126 /m144
Other languages - Zarma /m4 /m29 /m33
Other languages (group including: Amharic, Kinyarwanda, Setswana, Swahili, Tigrinya, Wolof, Xhosa, and Zulu) /m144
Search engines & Hausa /m43 /m49 /m50 /m51 /m52 /m53 /m54 /m55
Software, for production in Hausa (see also Keyboards) /m86
Software, localization in Hausa /m84 /m88 /m96 /m111 /m118 /m126
Software, localization in Hausa (Google) /m111 /m127
Software, localization in Hausa (Mediawiki) /m132
Software, localization in Hausa (Microsoft) /m126 /m128
Spelling/orthography corrector /m108 /m109 /m110
Translation utilities & MT /m19 /m21 /m120
Unicode (& Hausa pages) /m43 /m50 /m51 /m52 /m54 /m129
Unicode resources /m3 /m5 /m23 /m28 /m30
Web content in Hausa (including demos) /m63 /m77 /m104 /m139
Web content in Hausa (international shortwave radio sites) /m107 /m139
Web content in Hausa (Wikipedia) /m130 /m131
Web directory in Hausa /m51 /m54 /m55
Off-topic (films) /m112 /m113

Recently learned via a post by MultiLingual's Donna Parrish on Twitter that "Microsoft Language Portal updated with Windows 10 translations." Checked out their Language Portal, and found that they've got terms in 11 African languages (12 counting Arabic) including Hausa. The others are Amharic, Igbo, Kinyarwanda, Setswana, Swahili, Tigrinya, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu.

Impressive, but via the search feature on the Portal noted that use of Hausa Boko appears to be inconsistent. Some terms that would have hooked letters have instead the ASCII counterparts. For example, "ɗaya" (one) sometimes appears instead as "daya"; "huɗu" (four) is rendered as "hudu."

Thanks Tom, for the clarification. Pardon my ignorance (I'm the lone holdout in my immediate family who hasn't gone over to iPhone, iPad & Mac), but does that mean it's basically QWERTY (etc.) or some app? How does/did Apple add keyboards say for French or Arabic? Apps do a lot but if you're removed by a copy/paste step from whatever you're working on, that's still kind of second class.

I'm not as enthusiastic about touchscreens as some are (prefer them as an optional input method), but it would seem that one of their advantages is obviating a lot of the keyboard layout limits of the physical keyboard. I.e., call up anything from DVORAK to a Konyin layout to whatever, to conform to language orthography needs & user preference.

I think that's what the Nuance Swype concept is aiming at, though I don't currently use a system compatible with that either.

I'll repost the link to the Hausa typing app you mention (QT requires HTML markup to get the links "live"). It certainly looks like it would get the job done, which is the first consideration:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hausa-keyboard/id670021926?mt=8

Don

Has anyone tried creating a Hausa keyboard for touchscreen? Does one exist on iPads/iPhone, Android or other? I heard indirectly of someone suggesting development of Nuance Swype smart touchscreen keyboard for Hausa.

Nuance is the same company that has the Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition/speech-to-text program. Neither with that nor with any other of their products am I aware of any attention to African languages (in which they would not be unique). References on the Swype fyi:

• http://www.nuance.com/landing-pages/products/swype/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swype
  

Don Osborn

Dear subscribers, Due mainly to spam, I have had to close some other QT message boards set up for discussion of technical support for specific African languages. Happily, Hausa charsets and keyboards has not had the same level of problem, but it has not been used as much as it was several years ago.

If you think it is worth continuing this forum, I will not close it. (If I do close it, that just means that there will be no new messages allowed, but the forum will still be online and could technically still be opened again.)

This was the first of the language-specific QuickTopic boards set up (12 years ago - see /m1 ), and it really helped inspire not only a series of similar boards, but also the "A12n-collaboration" list that treated a number of issues about fonts and keyboards for African languages. By now, many of the technical challenges that prompted the creation of this forum have given way to a range of other challenges and opportunities, and the media we use for discussions have also changed.

Anyway, please let us know your opinions about whether this forum still has utility for what you are doing with Hausa on computers and the internet.

Sannu da aiki.

Don Osborn, PhD
Bisharat (A language, technology and development initiative)
http://www.bisharat.net/