Cultural
identity and local content development on the World Wide
Web
The
CyberEthiopia initiative
by Kitaw
Yayeh-Yirad Paper presented at INFOCOM 2004 International Information and Communcations
Technology (ICT) Exhibition and Forum July 2004
Forum
where CyberEthiopia has received a Best Web site award for
excellence
Table
of Contents About fidels (Ethiopian
Alphabet) 4 Importance of Cultural
identity and local content development for Ethiopians 5 Computerization of the
Ethiopic Alphabet 5 Reconfiguration
of Ethiopia in the global era.
7 The
CyberEthiopia Initiative. 8 Objectives
of CyberEthiopia. 8 Some
key figures about CyberEthiopia (as of April 2004) 8 What
we have implemented to date (as of April 2004) 9 Introduction The rise of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in recent years has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of globalization. In an increasingly globalized world, least developed countries such us Ethiopia have little or no margin of action as they try to position themselves into the so called Global village. The
global era and the advent of the Information Society demonstrates the need for
Ethiopians not only to develop their information and communication
infrastructure but also create an enabling environment for information and
knowledge sharing with their own alphabet. The
endemic risk of being left behind and further marginalized can only be
eliminated with the digital inclusion and full participation of Ethiopians in
the Information Society, especially the young people and the future workforce.
Thus
the need to underline the fact that Ethiopians should adopt and adapt
emerging technologies, make appropriate use of them as to stimulate
development while paying particular attention to the preservation and
affirmation of their heritage, their cultural and linguistic
legacies. Background Ethiopia
has this particularity of having its own script used for written
communication since 100 BC. The
multilingualism and the development of the local script present challenges with
respect to Ethiopians’ full participation in the information society, especially
in terms of development and promotion of local content. The
development of ICT infrastructure and human capacity building is a key
factor to Ethiopians' participation in the Global Information Society.
This
discussion paper will not address the above critical issues but will rather attempt to underline the linguistic
and cultural insight to bear on the design and deployment of emerging
technologies, particularly for rural, non-elite communities in countries like
Ethiopia. It
will also highlight the challenges related
to development of local content, Information and knowledge sharing applications
with indiginous Ethiopian alphabet by elaborating few of the initiatives made by
CyberEthiopia.com in that aspect.
The paper then suggests a practical use of these technologies to further develop
dialogue and networking among Ethiopians World Wide in the global era.
About fidels (Ethiopian
Alphabet)
Africa's Oldest AlphabetEthiopic,
Africa's oldest alphabet still in use today, dates back to 100 BC. It is a
system used to write the Ge'ez literary, ecclesiastical languages? Amharic,
Tigré, and Tigrinya languages of Ethiopia and today's Eritrea. Both Ge'ez and
the related languages of Ethiopia are written and read from left to right, in
contrast with the other Semitic languages. Ethiopians
call their alphabet "fidel." The Ethiopic alphabet consists of 26 letters, all
representing consonants, that can
be transformed into syllabic symbols by attaching the appropriate vocalic
markers to the letters. Ge'ez LanguageGe'ez,
the ancient language of the Aksumite empire, is used today only for religious
writings and worship in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. The ancient Ge'ez
language is the ancestor of the modern Tigrinya and Tigré languages of Ethiopia
and Eritrea. The oldest known inscription in Ge'ez dates from the 3rd or 4th
century. The Bible was translated into Ge'ez between the 5th and 7th centuries.
The period of classical Ge'ez literature was between the 13th and 17th
centuries. Although Ge'ez ceased to be spoken popularly sometime between 900 and
1200, it continues as a liturgical language. Amharic LanguageAmharic
is the official language of Ethiopia and is native to the central and
northwestern provinces. Nearly one-third of the population speaks Amharic. It is
an Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest Semitic group and is related to Ge'ez,
or Ethiopic. It also has affinities with Tigré, Tigrinya, and the South Arabic
dialects. Although the oldest extant records in Amharic are songs and poems
dating from the 14th century, significant literature did not begin until the
19th century. Amharic
is written in a slightly modified form of the alphabet used for writing the
Ge'ez language. There are 33 basic characters, each of which has seven forms
depending on which vowel it is to be pronounced in the syllable. The language
has been strongly influenced by the Cushitic languages, especially Oromo. The
dialects of Amharic are not strongly differentiated from one
another. Ethiopia's Languages GroupsEthiopia
is a mosaic of about 70 languages that can be classified into four
groups--Semitic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Nilotic. The Semitic languages are spoken
primarily in the northern and central parts of the country; they include Ge'ez,
Tigrinya, Amharic, Gurage, and Hareri. The most important Cushitic languages are
Oromo, Somali, and Afar. The Omotic languages, chief among which is Walaita, are
not widespread, being spoken mostly in the densely populated areas of the
extreme southwest. The Nilotic language group is native to the Western Lowlands,
with Kunama speakers being dominant. Language
-Mother Tongue and 2nd Language of the 5 Largest Ethnic Groups In
Ethiopia 1994 Census (in million)
Source:
Adapted from Central Statistical Authority (Ethiopia) 1998 * Afro-Asiatic language of the Southwest
Semitic group currently using Ethiopic Alphabet
Importance of Cultural
identity and local content development for Ethiopians
All
stakeholders of the Information Society declare as a principle the importance of
the promotion, affirmation and preservation of diverse cultural identities and
languages as reflected
in relevant agreed United Nations documents including UNESCO's Universal
Declaration on Cultural Diversity. As
a country with diverse cultural, linguistic and historical heritage, this
principle has a particular importance to Ethiopians. Preservation
of cultural heritage and linguistic legacy is a crucial component of identity
and self–understanding of individuals that links a community to its
past. The
particularity of using ethiopic script for written communications creates even
more challenges in the full participation and contribution to the information
society and their ability to use the opportunities such a society could offer to
their development. Computerization of the
Ethiopic Alphabet
Although
there are many ingenious endeavors in computerizing the Ethiopic Alphabet, the
work done so far is not yet entierely suited for real information processing.
Today,
there are over 40 Ethiopic word processing software products available, each
with its own character set, encoding system, typeface names, and keyboard
layout. There
is an obvious lack of standards in the computerization of the Ethiopic Alphabet
despite the attempts of several associations to harmonize the Ethiopic Character
sets in order to have a unique encoding system. An
encouraging development is the inclusion of the Ethiopic character set in the
Unicode[1]
3.0 standard released in the year 2000. Unicode
provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no
matter what the program, no matter what the language (See Annex 1). A
small number of word processing software vendors have adapted their fonts to
comply with the Unicode standard. However, many applications and operating
systems do not yet fully support the Ethiopian Character sets.
The
keyboard layouts for latin/ethiopic transliteration is also as diverse as the
word processing developers. The keyboard layout may not necessarily be unique as
to give users the choice of their preferred layout. However, there should be a
limited set of known, standard layouts that are familiar to all, irrespective of
the vendors' implementation. A
national committee should undertake this task and produce a standard to be
adopted by all word processing softwares and other ethiopic
applications. The challenges of Ethiopic Web Publishing In
the early days of the World Wide Web, browsers allowed only ASCII text and
images to be displayed. At the time, in order to publish an ethiopic character,
one had to take a picture of the character and publish it on the Web as an
image: a cumbersome and inefficient procedure still used by many
today. At
the end of 1995, Internet browers included support to different fonts typefaces.
The user could then download and install a specific ethiopic font and view
ethiopic documents throught the Internet browsers. Unless
fonts are installed on the user's PC, today there is no reliable and efficient
mechanism allowing Ethiopic web publishing on all
platforms. Some
font embedding tools are useful to tackle the font downloading requirement. They
are nonetheless not available for all browsers and operating
systems. Portable
Document Format (PDF), a standard adopted by governments and entreprises
worldwide can be a reliable format for ethiopic electronic document exchange. It
preserves document integrity so files can
be viewed and printed on a variety of platforms. PDF
is pratical for downloading ethiopic documents that require standard printing
but can not be considered as an efficient and universal way for ethiopic web
publishing. There
are many constraints in ensuring an ethiopic web page to be viewed as desired by
any user, any browser and any platform. Unicode
promises to remove some of the existing constraints for ethiopic web publishing
ensuring the production, viewing and publishing of any ethiopic material on the World
Wide Web and allow document exchanges without any compatibility
issues. Reconfiguration
of Ethiopia in the global era
Prof Donald Levine in “Reconfiguring the Ethiopian Nation in a global era” : paper presented at the Fifteenth International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Hamburg University, July 23, 2003 writes :
The
aftermath of the political turmoil that followed the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia
has trigerred a migration of a lot of ethiopians overseas. The pace of the drain
has not sloweddown since. Sadly, there is very little likelihood that a massive
return or slow down of this trend will take place in the near
future. There
is, however, a light in tunnel to use this drain for the country and give
Ethiopia a chance to participate in a new revolution – The Information and
Technological revolution. Indeed,
the advent of the Information and Technological revolution can be an opportunity
for further linking Ethiopians inside or outside the country and or even reverse
the brain drain. The Ethiopian diaspora is at a relatively infantile stage. There is a growing awareness and will to organize, build a strong and influential diaspora for the development of the country. In that context, ICT can easliy be an instrumental in further connecting the diaspora to the homeland and turning it into a real asset for the country. The CyberEthiopia
Initiative
What
is CyberEthiopia
CyberEthiopia
is a pioneering information gateway to all that is Ethiopian on the World Wide
Web. Created
in 1996, CyberEthiopia is a non-profit foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland
run by young dedicated individuals who believe that the adoption, adaptation and
development of Information and Communication Technologies can be an enabling
instrument and play a catalyst role in bringing development to the country.
Without
any funding or commercial interest, CyberEthiopia is the result of few
individuals who devoted their time and know-how to set some foundation for
Ethiopians to participate in the Information Society and stimulate awareness
among decision makers and ethiopians at large about the critical role ICTs play
in the global era. Objectives
of CyberEthiopia
Some
key figures about CyberEthiopia (as
of April 2004)
-
On
average ~ 7000 unique visitors per week -
On
average ~ 50000 page views per week -
Over
6000 subscribers to the e-lists -
Over
4000 registered to your_name@CyberEthiopia.com
Popularity
based on search engine ranking for the keyword "Ethiopia" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
