Attendees of the SWiP Workshop expressed excitement at the opportunity to contribute to the digital space by helping to promote and preserve the use of all South African languages on digital platforms. 

The Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) Language Services Unit, in a collaborative effort with the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), the free encyclopaedia (Wikipedia), and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), hosted a two-day workshop. The SWiP project, a collective endeavor, aims to promote all of South Africa’s indigenous languages online. It does so by bringing together communities of indigenous language users, equipping them with the skills to create and review content on Wikipedia, and collectively increasing their respective languages’ digital footprint.

CUT Registrar Dr Sally Dzingwa expressed the profound impact of the participants' contributions in actively promoting the use of indigenous language on Wikipedia and other digital platforms in the future. “Through such workshops, we are confident that we are on the right path to ensuring the effective implementation of multilingualism in all spheres of our institution. As a university, CUT is honoured and thrilled to embark on such a collaborative and informative journey of enhancing and expanding the knowledge available on Wikipedia and the role it intends to play in the development of Indigenous languages corpus,” said Dr Dzingwa.

From left: Thabang Mkhize, CUT Writing Centre Coordinator; Michael Graaf, Wikimedia; Nikiwe Matebula, Manager: PanSALB Free State; Dr. Lehlohonolo Motake, CUT Deputy Director: Language Services; Mmasibidi Setaka, SADiLaR Digital Humanities Researcher: Sesotho and Bobby Shabangu, Wikipedia. 

Nikiwe Matebula, Manager of PanSALB Free State, explained that PanSALBs role in the SWiP project role includes promoting the use of indigenous languages on public platforms such as Wikipedia, promoting standardised language practices as determined by the orthography rules published every five years by the Language Board. These rules, which govern the correct spelling, pronunciation, and use of words in a language, are crucial for those wanting to write publicly in their language. “South Africans are not contributing to Google Translate, and we need the data to train those models to use the correct translations for certain words,” she added.

Bobby Shabangu from Wikipedia said: “We have chapters based all around the world, so we in South Africa are one of those chapters affiliated with Wikimedia. We advocate for free knowledge, raise awareness about Wikipedia, activate new users, and enhance the representation of our South African languages on Wikipedia.”

The workshop's purpose was to promote and contribute to the preservation of South Africa’s Indigenous languages on Wikipedia. In line with the CUT Vision 2030, the SWiP workshop served as a milestone step towards the beneficial use of digital platforms.

Sesotho version - Phahamiso ya tlotlontswe ya dipuo tsa botala tsa Aforika Borwa marangrang a dijithale.docx