WikiAfrica Hour #52: Speaking in Our Voices: Preserving Local Languages through Wikimedia Projects

Languages are more than words — they carry the identity, history, and culture of entire communities. In this episode of WikiAfrica Hour, we explore how Wikimedia projects are helping to preserve and celebrate Africa’s linguistic diversity.

From the efforts of Wikitongues and Lingua Libre to document endangered and indigenous languages, to the challenges faced by local contributors, this conversation dives deep into why language matters in open knowledge.

Watch the episode as our guests share their experiences, collaborations, and hopes for the future — including the role of AI, partnerships, and how young people can take pride in contributing to Wikimedia projects in their mother tongues.

“So local languages are really very important, and I do not call them local languages. I call them indigenous languages. They carry a very unique word view, and when a language disappears, we lose entire ways of understanding history, understanding science, understanding nature and understanding culture..” _ Tochi Precious

“I think open knowledge and preservation documentation of languages are very closely related, because Open Knowledge is about open access, and this open access is all about making sure that access to knowledge which is a human right, and that is available to all and they don’t have to subscribe or pay. People should not be forced in any form to access knowledge, right? That’s the idea behind open access and open knowledge, “ _ Subhashish Panigrahi

Our guests are:

• Tochi Precious: Tochi is a Language Activist, Multilingual Project Manager, Co-founder & Executive Director of Igbo Wikimedia Organization, and Wikimedian in Residence at Wikitongues. She’s a member of the Language Committee and a Board Member at Wiki in Africa and African.
• Subhashish Panigrahi: a documentary filmmaker and multimedia artist whose work advocates for the protection of endangered and indigenous languages. As a community manager, Panigrahi led different roles at Wikimedia Foundation, Centre for Internet and Society, Mozilla, and the Internet Society from 2012 to 2019.
• Sara Thomas: Dr Sara Thomas is a Programme Manager at Wikimedia UK, with a remit for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and volunteering across the UK. She was formerly Wikimedian in Residence at Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Scottish Library and Information Council.
• Hugo LOPEZ: a former sinologist, Wikimedian in residence (University of Toulouse), senior Wikimedian for 2 decades. In the past decade, Hugo helped document hundreds languages as the main coordinator of Wikimedia’s language diversity recording project Lingualibre.org. He also co-maintainer SignIt, a sign language web extension and work on a Whistled Occitan dictionary.

Hosting them:

Lucy Iwala: a language professional and community engagement strategist with expertise in language localisation, digital content management, and multilingual project coordination. Her work bridges gender, linguistic and cultural gaps, ensuring inclusive and accessible communication for global audiences. She is a Wikimedian and Igbo Lingua translation manager in the Global Voices Community.

“I think that one of the major challenges that they find for smaller communities, especially smaller Wikipedias, when people are maybe used to being on English Wikipedia, is firstly the size of the community. So smaller language Wikipedia will necessarily be smaller and have fewer people that are able to contribute to them, and not having as many people can put more pressure on the key contributors, as well as not having as many people to be able to conduct the kind of oversight that’s needed for a healthy Wikipedia.” _ Sara Thomas

“So on lingual libre, the core dynamics of Wikimedia is to use the energy of the larger language and communities to build tools which are also used by smaller communities. This is a core dynamic we want, but the needs are not the same. And in the case of lingua libre, we slowly move, but we have resistance from the larger communities. We move toward also allowing documentation for smaller communities under copyright and under their condition. And that’s something important” _ Hugo LOPEZ

In Focus:

Inspiring open interview with Tochi Precious. In this inspiring interview, Tochi opens up about her journey in the open movement, the challenges and possibilities in language activism, and what “openness” truly means to her. She shares heartfelt advice about empathy, leadership, gender, and the future of open knowledge.

This WikiAfrica Hour episode aired live: check out our Website or the WikiAfrica Hour meta page to watch this or previous episodes.  All WikiAfrica Hour episodes are available on YouTube.