CPUT contributes towards preservation of SA indigenous languages
OPEN, FREE AND ACCESSIBLE KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL: Institutional Language Unit recently hosted a SWiP Project Workshop
Monday, 11 November 2024
In an endeavour to implement the University’s policy of multilingualism, the Institutional Language Unit recently hosted a SWiP Project Workshop at Bellville Campus.
The SWiP (SADiLaR-Wikipedia-PanSALB) is a collaborative initiative by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR); the free encyclopedia (Wikipedia) and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB).
The project was officially launched on 20 September 2023 at the University of South Africa. While the SWiP launch event shone a spotlight specifically on isiNdebele to encourage the Ndebele people to actively participate in contributing content to Wikipedia, the SWiP project is aimed at promoting all South Africa’s indigenous languages online. It does so by bringing together communities of indigenous language users and giving them the skills to create and review content on Wikipedia. In doing so, they collectively increase their respective languages’ digital footprint.
The delegation included representatives from CPUT, Wikipedia and PanSALB.
Dr Kabelo Sebolai, Head: Language Unit, said they were asked by SADiLAR to be the hosts of the workshop and that they were among the 10 universities selected from the 26 to do this. On the first day of the workshop, Wikipedia delegate, Michael Graaf provided a presentation on:
- History of Wikipedia
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- The Wikimedia Community support and projects
On the second day of the workshop Graaf started with a recap from Day 1 which was followed by training in editing/improving an article, translating an article and article creation. Sebolai said the workshop was a success. He said: “We learned how to use Wikipedia for translations into and editing African languages. As part of language policy implementation, the bulk of the work we do in the language unit involves translation and editing.”
He enthused: “The workshop introduced us to strategies for language and writing development using Wikipedia. The strategies will be useful in our ongoing endeavour to implement the university’s policy of multilingualism”.
Written by Aphiwe Boyce
Email: boyceap@cput.ac.za
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