Africa Wiki Women Voices Podcast – Episode #3: Languages On The Brink

There’s never been a more crucial moment to turn up the volume on Africa’s linguistic heritage and ask hard questions about where Africans are hitting all the right notes and where they’re falling flat.

Despite Africa being world’s most linguistically diverse continent, with 2,100 to 3,000 native tongues. UNESCO warns that up to 10% of these languages, especially those spoken by smaller communities, could vanish within the next century. But, does Africa risk losing an irreplaceable piece of its identity?

In Episode 3 of the Africa Wiki Women Voices Podcast, “Languages on The Brink,” Host Oluwapelumi Aina sits down with Tochi Precious; a language advocate and Wikimedian in Residence at WikiTongues, to analyse how artificial intelligence is reshaping, and sometimes distorting, the documentation of Africa’s indigenous languages.

While AI can be a powerful tool, what happens when it falls into the hands of non-speakers or those unfamiliar with language’s proper orthographic standards, “helpful” algorithms can produce articles that misspell, misrepresent, and erase the nuances of a mother tongue.

The conversation digs deep into how Wikimedians are preserving Africa’s linguistic heritage but also where they’re falling short. Unveiling systemic biases that make African languages invisible on global platforms, as well as pragmatic strategies for the Wikimedia movement to flip the script by tailoring documentation criteria to Africa’s unique cultural landscapes instead of adopting Western models.

The episode ends with a powerful reflection on the role of African women in language preservation. Touching on how contributing in mother tongue is not just about editing but a form of reclamation, and that though the global Wikimedia movement is finally listening to African women, there’s still a long journey ahead. And it’s time for more women to pull up a chair at the table where decisions are made.

Ready to hear the full conversation of what’s at stake and what’s possible? Listen to “Languages on The Brink” now on Spotify, Pocket Cast, or Castbox, and join the movement in keeping Africa’s languages and voices alive.