ZA-WWW, 2009 conference

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The extent of World Wide Web content available in South African indigenous languages
VL Mokele, T Strydom, AB Pretorius

Last modified: 2009-11-24

Abstract


South Africans are living in a global village, in which inhabitants are governed by technology. The South African government has made official eleven languages of which ten are considered indigenous. These languages encompass a deep seated sense of belonging encored by the tap root of culture. In South Africa there is still what is termed the digital divide, where the latest developments in information and communication technologies are not available to all. Moreover, even where such developments are available, they tend to be inaccessible to the major part of the population, largely due to language. Currently few information technology systems have their content and or interface available in South African indigenous languages. There is also a lack of systems that are able to present information in a specified indigenous language. This explorative research investigates the extent of available content in South African indigenous languages on the World Wide Web, focussing on the websites of national departments of the South African Government and of South African institutions of higher learning. Aspects evaluated include the availability of content in indigenous languages, the availability of hyperlinks in indigenous languages and number of indigenous languages represented. It was found that very few of these websites had content and/or hyperlinks available in indigenous languages.

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