The Wikimedia Community User Group of Uganda says it is waiting for the Wikipedia Foundation to approve its newly created Runyankole domain for it to go live on the World’s largest online encyclopedia.
Speaking to this publication during their annual general meeting on Saturday, Michael Kaluba, the executive director of the Wikimedia Community User Group of Uganda, said this is the second language after Luganda that they are uploading onto Wikipedia, the world’s largest online open-source encyclopedia, and they hope to add Acholi to the list next year, before embarking on other local languages.
‘When you go to Google, you find that most of the information about Uganda is written by foreigners who have been shaping the narrative of Uganda. Here, we provide accurate information about Ugandan content. We document that information.
It is open-source licensed; it is available free of charge,’ he said.
Asked to explain what it takes and why Ugandans should care about their local languages being uploaded on Wikipedia, he said language is culture, and it must be preserved.
Wikipedia is the world’s largest online encyclopedia that most countries are using to store information regarding their countries. They also translate information from English into local languages and vice versa so that the information is available for personal work and research.
Christopher Liberty, the project lead for Runyankole Wikipedia content, explained that they initiated the process to translate English into Runyankole in July last year by creating a committee to translate the available content from English to Runyankole and ensure that it is clean and correct.
They worked with Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Kabale University, as well as Sunflower, an entity that provides machines for translation, and engaged 300 human editors to translate the available content and ensure that it is grammatically correct, has meaning, and is accurate content
He said they would like to have as many local languages as possible uploaded on the search engine because English isn’t the only language spoken in Uganda, but they have challenges of getting volunteers to support the exercise
‘We had a team of 300 volunteers translating. To date we have 1,300 articles in Runyankole. The domain hasn’t gone live because the language committee at the Wikimedia Foundation is evaluating it; we hope to have it approved before the end of this year,’ he said.
Geoffrey Kateregga, one of the co-founders of the community, said they started it in 2014 after realising that Wikipedia is the world’s largest encyclopedia where people look for information online because it provides factual information.
He said that whereas anyone is free to join the community, the content they provide must be factual, so that Ugandans stop waiting for foreigners to come and write information about the country’s food, music, and any other important information people would like to know about the country; any professional can contribute information or photos, and the content shouldn’t be tailored to marketing.
Currently, Uganda boasts of over 60 different tribes and ethnic groups with distinct cultural beliefs and practices.
Unfortunately, despite the rich diversity of traditional cultural practices and ways of life, the locals haven’t documented the traditional culture and practices to benefit from them financially through tourism.
Because of modernisation, some cultural practices are becoming extinct, and some tribes are also disappearing with little documentation because they have been brainwashed to believe that they are inferior rather than superior.