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"
Source
: CyberEthiopia Access logs. Note that this figures are averages and should be
considered as indicators. It
is interesting to note the constant increase in the number of visits from
Ethiopia. From
0.04 % in 2000, it was about 18 % in 2003. The recent figures of April 2004
indicate that the number has grown to 20 % making one out of five of the users
of CyberEthiopia from Ethiopia. The
low teledensity of 0.53 (2002), the small PC penetration of below 100 000 (2002)
combined with the high Internet Tarrifs (see Annex 2) are certainly among the
main reasons of this relatively small number of users from Ethiopia. What
we have implemented to date (as
of April 2004)
· CyberEthiopia NewsCyberEthiopia's
News Updates is an area where one can get news items pertaining to Ethiopia
from major news sources on the Internet. It allows Internet users to
get timely information on latest issues and facilitates access to current news
avoiding them the time-consuming task of searching news
sites. The
automated programs crawl major news sites on the Internet and bring pointers
(hyperlinks) to news related to Ethiopia to our news archiving database, a very
good starting point for researchers, and media professionals to search for
references into our news archives. To
date, no filtering is done as to leave the users decide what is relevant and
trustworthy. The
headlines in Amharic from Ethiopian newspapers under The
Ethiopian News Headlines (ENH) collects daily news of Ethiopia and makes it
accessible to the Ethiopian Diaspora for whom it would otherwise be
unavailable. The ENH has helped extend the reach of local papers
since 1997 and partnered with CyberEthiopia in 2003 to provide the
public with an Amharic disucssion service for the news
articles. |
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|
|
The Warka tree is native to Ethiopia and has an enormous trunk with tapering branches and can attain a maximum height of 75 feet and maximum diameter of 60 feet around the trunk. It is also one of the longest lived trees in the world. It is the traditional place where villagers gather to discuss on social and community issues. |
On
the CyberWorld, WARKA is a unique and independent web based forum allowing
Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia to discuss over the Internet, using the
millenary ethiopian alphabet (fidels). Created in June 2000, it has evolved a lot since its initial
launch, becoming one of the most used discussion forum gathering Ethiopians from
all corners of the World.
Warka
(
)
community network's primary objective is to foster
dialogue,
collaboration and knowledge sharing among Ethiopians (both inside and outside
the country) through appropriate e-forums in local Ethiopian languages as
it fits a democratic,
free and prosperous Ethiopia.
WARKA
(
- a
non-partisan and independent ethiopic based web forum made by Ethiopians for
Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia
- unique
in allowing Ethiopians to discuss over the Internet using their alphabet
(fidels).
- open
to all, free, and not moderated (i.e. uncensored).
WARKA
(
- Exchanges of views must
be constructive and must be conducted with respect, civility and
a minimum of courtesy as fits a democratic and free forum and the best
of Ethiopian culture.
- Insults, abusive, obscene,
vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other
material that may violate any applicable laws are not tolerated on Warka
forums.
·
Individuals who
systematically agitate in favor of the division of Ethiopians along ethnic,
tribal and religious lines will see their messages deleted and their access
denied.
|
Some
statistics about Warka (April 2004) | |
|
Number of posts |
29
093 |
|
Number
of registered users |
6
540 |
|
Posts
per day |
132.73 |
|
Views
per day |
8456 |
Warka
(
Cyber Postabet and the Ethiopic Input Interface [Communication/Technology]
Cyber
Posta bet's goal is to allow ethiopic messages to be exchanged through email
addresses. It is an implementation of the concept of "store and pick" commonly
used by a lot of "E-postcard delivery services".
Our longer term goal is
to enhance this service to a web based, secured email tool that allows ethiopic
messages to be exchanged over the Internet.
Conclusions
The
following points are suggestions and ideas that would better help fullfill the
objectives of CyberEthiopia and encourage the beneficial use of emerging
technologies by Ethiopians at large.
The
need for true multilingualism as well as the principle of localization is indeed
often mentioned by the major actors of the Information Society including giant
software vendors like Microsoft, governments and other stakeholders.
However,
existing situation with respect to multilingualism on the World Wide Web and the
development of local content in the Ethiopian case is not fully satisfactory
despite the numerous endeavours.
Various
professionals and companies are using some ad hoc yet ingenious solutions that
are, in general, incompatible with each other and that are not adequately suited
for real processing and exchange of information.
This
difficulty has been the result of a number of factors such as :
- the
absence of national and international standards for Ethiopic character set
encoding;
- the
lack of support of Ethiopic languages from major software platform providers
(probably related to an assumption of scarce business potential);
- the
lack of coordination among the various efforts.
Some
of the above difficulties have also been experienced by other similar
communities who have their own scripts (Korean, Japanese, Arabic etc) and have
been tackled appropriately through
proper standardization over time.
There
are, however, many encouraging developments in the right direction such as :
- the
inclusion of the Ethiopic character set in the Unicode 3.0 standard.
- the
recent announcement of Microsoft to work with the Ethiopian government and
other national companies on localizing their XP and Office suite with an
ethiopic Local Interface Pack.
- the
establishment of ECOSA (Ethiopian Computer Standards Association)
- the
impressive initiatives of various Ethiopian professionals in the world of Open
Source products that are not widely exploited in the country but can offer
tremendous opportunities for developing countries like Ethiopia.
For
Ethiopians to fully participate in the so called global information society and
benefit from it:
- Their
characterset (Ethiopic) needs to be fully supported by all ICT products
including internet domain names despite the unattractive business potential
for the work;
- A
national body that undertakes extensive research work in the development of
local content should be formed.
- Resources
and technical assistance should be allocated for endeavors in using Ethiopian
languages for developing local content including digitalizing indigenous
knowledge.
- A
national Internet Society (Ethiopian Internet Society) and professionals
network should be formed aiming to foster the use of the ICTs for information
exchange, transfer of knowledge, development-centered applications in
education, health, governance, commerce and public administration as well as
the contribution of the Diaspora to the homeland.
Linking Professionals through CyberSpace
To
date, as indicated by the access figures and probably due to the very low
Internet penetration and high Internet tarrifs in Ethiopia, the large majority
of CyberEthiopia users are Ethiopians in the Diaspora. Therefore as of today,
CyberEthiopia's focus should be directed more towards exploring how to best use
emerging technologies for further linking professionals aspiring to participate
in the development of their country while building an Ethiopian specific cyber
culture and collaboration spirit.
Therefore,
as part of its objective (3) which aims to "foster
dialogue, collaboration and knowledge sharing among Ethiopians in particular by
offering appropriate e-forums in local Ethiopian languages as it fits
a
democratic, free and prosperous Ethiopia",
CyberEthiopia is willing to kick-start a World Wide Ethiopian Professionals
Information Exchange Network (EPIEN) - through appropriate Warka Groups (similar
to Yahoo Groups) - that would include professionals (both inside and outside the
country) in different fields to identify key areas of collaboration on
technology and knowledge transfer and define tangible development projects that
would contribute the prosperity of the country.
We
call upon all Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia in various field of expertise
(Health professionals, engineers, economists, agronomist, authors, journalists,
businessmen, politicians etc) to reflect and act on how to build this
network, how to best use and get real benefits from these emerging tools and
turn the Diaspora into a real asset for the country.
Let us think global, but act local !
Acknowlegments
- My
brother Beruh, Senior Software developer (the Java man !), whose contributions
were instrumental in making CyberEthiopia a glimpse of reality
- Daniel
Yacob, Manager of Ethiopian News Headlines, for facilitating an effective
collaboration between CyberEthiopia and ENH in addition to his numerous
contributions in bringing ethiopic to the Open Source arena.
- Alexander
Maffi, Content Research Coordinator, whose inputs are essential to the
CyberEthiopia's Internet Directory of Ethiopian ressources on the
Web.
- Dawit
Bekele, CyberNeg@rit Coordinator whose wise advices,
Amharic editorials and numerous inputs are very valuable.
- Lulseged
Retta for allowing his world known art works to be used for the design, look
and feel of CyberEthiopia.
- All
regular readers who are contributing articles and inputs in the directory.
And last but not least all participants of Warka forums in particular the Top Ten quality content contributors without whom CyberEthiopia would not have been what it is today.
References
- Reconfiguring
the Ethiopian nation in a global era
http://www.ethiomedia.com/press/reconfiguring_ethiopia.html
- Ethiopia’s
Response to Draft WSIS Declaration of Principles and Action
Plans
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single_bynum.asp?lang=en&num=WSIS/PC-3/C/0061
- ICT
Focus Magazine Web site
http://www.ictfocus.net/
- Ethiopic
: An African Writing System by Ayele Bekerie
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1569020213/cyberethiopia08/
- Senamirmir
– Ethiopic
http://www.senamirmir.com/projects/ethiopic/ethiopic.html
- Understanding
Internationalization (Microsoft's view) http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/getwr/steps/wrg_g11n.mspx
- The
Ethiopic Unicode Resource Page
http://www.abyssiniacybergateway.net/fidel/unicode/
- Internet
in the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia Case Study http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/casestudies/ETH%20CS1.pdf
- The
World Summit on the Information Society
http://www.itu.int/wsis/
- The
Unicode Consoitum
http://www.unicode.org/
- Technology
Park in Ethiopia: Business of Out sourcing and Reversing the Brain Drain by
Woldeloul Kassa
http://www.cyberethiopia.net/directory/redirect.php?id=2143
Annexes
Annex
1
: Ethiopic
character code tables for the Unicode Standard (Ethiopic
1200 - 137F
an
excerpt from the Ethiopic character code tables for the
Unicode
Standard (Ethiopic
1200 - 137F
Source:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1200.pdf
Annex
2
: Some indicators for measuring access to ICT in Ethiopia
Source
: World Telecommunication Development Report 2003
Source
: World Telecommunication Development Report 2003
Source : World Telecommunication Development Report 2003
[1] The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization originally founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of text in modern software products and standards. (see excerpt from the Ethiopic character code in Annex)