African Youth Keep Their Heritage Languages Alive with Social Media and Artificial Intelligence
Young people in Africa and the diaspora are using social media and artificial intelligence technologies to preserve their local languages.
Young generations in Africa and the diaspora are utilizing social media and artificial intelligence technologies to preserve and keep alive the local languages inherited from their grandmothers. While UNESCO data aims to increase the digital visibility of low-resource African languages, African university students in Istanbul state that they are teaching their native languages to artificial intelligence programs.
Cultural Identity and Local Languages
The interest of young generations in Africa and the diaspora in local languages inherited from their grandmothers is being carried into the digital world through social media and artificial intelligence, alongside cultural identity and family ties. While languages remaining from the colonial period, such as English, French, and Portuguese, remain central to official communication, local languages carry a different meaning in the search for identity.
Research and Digital Trends
Research conducted in South Africa and Nigeria reveals that despite the dominance of English, young people use local languages in personal communication. However, limited data on the internet and the mixing of languages with English can make it difficult for artificial intelligence systems to accurately recognize these languages.
UNESCO and Digital Visibility
UNESCO's assessment states that artificial intelligence technologies are trained on content in dominant languages, and African languages such as Hausa and Zulu are not represented to the same extent. The organization recommends the use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies for low-resource languages.
Efforts of Students in Istanbul
African youth studying in Istanbul state that social media and artificial intelligence offer important opportunities for the preservation of heritage languages. Students report that they are trying to create a language memory by teaching words in their own languages to artificial intelligence programs.