Wiring Kenyan languages for the global virtual age: An audit of the human language technology resources.

Abstract

Whereas we recognize the advancement of computing a nd internet technologies over the years and its impact in the areas of health, education, gover nment, etc., there is increasing cognizance that th e languages used in these technologies will have a fa r reaching impact in terms of accessibility and usability by a wider audience. European languages a nd specifically English is considered the lingua franca of computing and the Internet due to the vas t amount of language resources available in these languages. Does this therefore exacerbate the lang uage and technology gap, especially in regards to African languages? This research is motivated by this question and beg ins to tackle a strand of the overarching language technology issue by auditing the human language tec hnologies for Kenyan languages. The research uses the Basic Language Resource Kit (BLARK) to do the inventory. This method has been successfully used to conduct language resources sur veys in other countries.