Wikipedia and African languages

Fascinating story in the New York Times about African languages slowly making a Wikipedia presence. There's a Swahili version now, and at the recent Wikimania conference at the Berkman Center, contributors to several other African language wiki efforts were interviewed by the Times.

Some interesting trends identified in the article: Not many native speakers are actually creating articles in African languages, owing to relatively low levels of Internet penetration in many parts of Africa. But non-native speakers from the West are helping out, either by writing articles on their own or using creative methods to get native-language speakers to contribute:

Far smaller is the version in Bambara, a language spoken by roughly three million people in Mali, in West Africa; as of the conference, there were more than 100 articles. Kasper Souren, 29, from the Netherlands, is responsible for most of them. Mr. Souren, who led one of the discussions at the Wiki conference, said he first came across Bambara as a volunteer in Mali in 2005. To get entries for the language’s Wikipedia, he said, he would introduce himself at a community center in the capital, Bamako, ask people to write articles in Microsoft Word and then pay “a buck an article.”

He then took the files they created and went back to an office and uploaded them onto the Bambara Wikipedia, being sure to credit the authors, even though they had never been on the Internet and thus could not have a Wikipedia user name. Mr. Souren learned enough Bambara to create the headers in that language; “nye” means article, for example.

Of the articles he posted, he said, “I can’t understand 100 percent of what they wrote, but I could estimate that it was right. It is a Wikipedia anyway, so I hope they can correct it.”

The Wikimedia Foundation is now talking about getting grants to hire a "facilitator" for African-language wikis, says the article.

Mandarin education expanding in the U.S.

The Washington Post this morning talks about efforts to expand early-age language teaching for critical langauges, including Mandarin. The drivers, notes the article, are an assumption on the part of many parents that being able to speak Chinese will give them an advantage in a world where China is a major power, as well as a realization on the part of the government that America is falling behind in language training, especially in languages that are associated with countries that can affect our security -- China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, etc.

I think it's great that more kids are learning Mandarin, or at least getting exposure to the language. We send our daughter to Mandarin class on the weekend, to reinforce what she's learning at home and to get her started with reading and writing. Most of the kids there have a Chinese background -- either through parents or adoption -- but there are some kids who do not. In fact, one of the standouts of the Mandarin speech competition in the spring was an eight-year-old blonde girl who wowed the crowd with a story about her ballet class in Mandarin, using proper grammar, vocabulary, and tones.

I also was exposed to Mandarin while still in school, although not at such a yong age. Until I was a junior in high school, the only languages we could take were very Euro-centric: French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Latin. That year (1985 or 1986) my public high school discontinued German and began offering Russian and Mandarin. I took the inaugural Mandarin class, taught by a Swedish academic who had lived in China. I can't say I learned a lot -- by the time I got to Taiwan five or six years later, I only knew basic numbers and had a concept of tones and measure words -- but that high school class planted a seed.

However, while exposure to Mandarin can be rewarding, I would caution against parents jumping to conclusions about Mandarin classes leading to a high-flying career in business or government. I remember a time in the early 1980s when people were saying the same things about Spanish and Japanese, but those language fads have petered out. Additionally, Mandarin can be frustrating to master, especially when it comes to tones and Chinese characters. So before you sign up your kids for classes, be aware that it will be challenging, the rewards are more likely to be social and intellectual than financial or career success, and by the time they grow up Mandarin may be fading, and there will be new language fads -- Hindi, Arabic, or something else.

Related post:

Raising Mandarin-speaking kids in America

21st century exoticism: David Mitchell's "Ghostwritten"

I went on a short vacation recently, and actually had time to read a book for fun -- a rarity these days, as I continue work on my thesis.

Anyhow, I started "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell. He's British, judging by the language, and apparently spent some time in Asia, either as a backpacker or expat. He's a good writer, but as I soon learned, spending time in other countries does not necessarily equal a great understanding of local societies. At best he is a great storyteller with a talent for writing dialogue and working with small details. At worst he applies Western cultural norms to Asian characters (such as in the "Tokyo" chapter) and uses exoticism in the chapters relating to China. An example is this encounter involving a British expat lawyer in Hong Kong, taking a stroll on Victoria Peak:

Suddenly a pile of cans next to the stall moved and barked something in Chinese. A face caked in grease and creased with age emerged and looked at me with loathing. I jumped out of my skin. The stall-holder laughed, and said, "Don't worry. He's harmless."

The garbage man growled, and repeated the same words, slowly, and louder, at me.

"What's he saying?"

"He's begging."

"How much does he want?" A stupid question.

"He's not begging for money."

"What's he begging for?"

"He's begging for time."

"Why does he do that?"

"He thinks you're wasting yours, so you must have plenty to spare."

Up to this point (page 95) I was teetering on whether to continue the book, but this bit of dialogue convinced me it probably wasn't worth it. I halfheartedly read one more chapter -- about a Sichuanese tea stall owner living next to a magical tree and calling all foreigners "foreign devils" -- and then gave it up, in favor of a pop history tome: Stephen Ambrose's book about the transcontinental railroad.

And I wasn't able to finish that one before vacation ended. Some day, when my thesis wraps up ...

The Summer School learns a hard lesson

This is probably not something that comes up at the Harvard Summer School (or the University) that often, but it's worth noting. It's a story carried in the Harvard Crimson about Navdeep Singh Johal, and his kirpan, a knife carried by some Sikhs for religious reasons. Navdeep is a GSAS student taking Summer School classes. The Summer School confiscated it, but gave it back and apologized to his parents after Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck intervened.

Harvard in early August

Images from Harvard Yard, taken on Monday. I'd upload more, but my dial-up connection is just too slow.

Links: Undergound subtitles in Chinese; Punk rock in Beijing; The long tail debate

• Underground subtitling industry develops around American TV shows
  This is really something, from the NYT -- a band of American TV show fans in China, banding together over the Internet to subtitle shows like Lost and Friends so other people can enjoy them. It's all illegal, of course, but says a lot about the power lure of foreign programming in China, the problems with domestic television programming, and the power of the Internet to frustrate Chinese bureaucracy and Hollywood executives.


• An introduction to the world of Chinese punk rock
  From the Washington Post. It leaves out a lot, but if you're new to the concept of Chinese punk rock, it's an adequate introduction.


• WSJ/Wired "Long Tail" debate
  Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal questions Wired Editor Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" theory. Here's the response from Chris.

Links: Rural Chinese poverty; text mining introduction; Strauss and the twists of history; Onion on Wikipedia

• 
  The face of poverty in rural China
  A look at the dynamics of poverty in interior areas of China. This Washington Post reporter interviewed people in a Hui (Chinese muslim minority) area in Gansu province.


• Text Mining the New York Times
  This Science Daily article describes a CATA project on NYT content. Sounds like frequency counts to me, but if you're unfamiliar with how basic text analysis programs can be used, this is a good starting point.


• Twists of history: Chance encounter between American GI and Richard Strauss leads to Concerto
  This is an amazing story about John De Lancie an Army Sgt. (and professional oboeist in civilian life) who was serving in Germany in the closing days of World War II. He learned that the Austrian composer was in a villa in the same town, and arranged for a meeting. A concerto, and Strauss' only work for oboe, was the result.


• Wikipedia celebrates 750 years of American independence
  The Onion throws a barb at the "wisdom of the crowd" theory and Wikipedia.

Links: Qana and ESWN (東南西北); Chinese corporate spying; PRC 'Net usage stats

• ESWN and the Qana massacre
  I didn't know this, but the ESWN Blog (東南西北) was created not to translate Chinese media and blogs into English, but as an anti-war platform. The massacre at Qana prompts him to revisit the horrors of war, and the impact on innocent lives (warning: very disturbing images)


• Corporate Espionage: The China connection
  Ira Winkler: "When companies do business in China, they can expect that many of their workers are agents of the Chinese government and that their facilities are bugged. I've had client after client tell me about how their technologies were completely compromised within months of building facilities in China."


• Chinese 'Net users spend 16.5 hours online
  There's more. 123 million broadband users, nearly three million domain names, and "28 million Internet users in China often write blogs." From ChinaTechNews.com.