Preserving and promoting African languages is the responsibility of every African; writers, speakers, publishers, and African language teachers. The publisher’s role in fostering African languages is indispensable. Aside from increasing publishing in African languages, we also suggest that:
- Language policy debate should be depoliticized.
- There should be incentives to train and deploy more teachers of African languages.
- Students should have greater choice to be examined in standards of their languages.
- The state should assist with translation services (the most significant cost faced by the industry) to facilitate investment by publishers in indigenous languages.
While, in the face of Africa’s escalating economic and social problems, it is difficult to be overly optimistic about the future of African languages, this is an area where Kabod and others engaged in the processes of teaching, learning, and communication might make a tangible contribution.
About Christian: he is the managing director of Kabod Group, a leading language service provider in West Africa. He has 11 years of professional experience as a translator in the children's book, ed-tech, nonprofit, and video game industries. He founded the Network of African Languages Translators and Teachers (ALATT), the Association of Language Companies in Africa (ALCA), and hosts Kabod Language Talk on issues affecting African languages. He is a member of ITI, CIOL, ALA, ATSA, etc.
About Sylvain: he is a language enthusiast and professional. He worked on several topics about translation and the language industry. Passionate about African languages and concerned about contributing to their preservation, it offers language services to organizations and individuals to fulfill their goals. Has +5 years of organizing the annual Multilingualism Week Conference that engages language experts to discuss trending issues in the language industry. He loves Africa and is unwaveringly determined to contribute to its development.
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