DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED YORUBA TRANSLATOR

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED YORUBA TRANSLATOR

ABSTRACT

The growth of globalization in the world today has increased the rate at which people interact and integrate, thereby increasing the level of international integration from interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. Language differences therefore pose a major barrier to smooth running of these processes. Therefore there is need for existence of system that will help translate between languages. English is a West Germanic language which has become the lingual Franca in Nigeria and 53 other countries. Therefore vital information are written and spoken in English language in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Yoruba language is lagerly spoken in Nigeria with over 40 million speakers in the south-western part of the country and also in parts of Benin republic. This research deals with the translation of English text to Yoruba text using rule based method. Twenty two rules were formulated for the translation which is specified using context free grammar. A bilingual dictionary dataset containing English words and the corresponding translation in Yoruba language was used. The research model was implemented with ASP.net and C# programming languages. The translator was evaluated to have accuracy of 90.5%.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

English language is the Nigerian lingua franca which is commonly spoken among tribes in the country. This has therefore posed a threat to the survival of indigenous Nigerian languages. Consequently, most children cannot speak their mother tongue. Therefore, experts are agitated that if a child cannot speak his or her mother tongue today, there is probaility that in the next 20 to 25 years the sons and daughters of the child may lose the language[1]. This implies that in the next 50 years or more, the fate of Nigerian languages such as Yoruba, would be close to near extinction. The recent policy of Nigeria Federal Ministry of Education that made the study of indigineous languages optional in the Senior Secondary Schools do not help matters[1].This research provides a means of preventing extinction of Yoruba language. Also it helps in the flow of globilization by developing a web-based user friendly English to Yoruba Machine Translation System. This system is easily accessible to learning and to teaching the indigenes and anyone interested in Yoruba language. The translator is user friendly and English words are easily translated to Yoruba words. More so, it assists in understanding the Yoruba language with English language.

Yoruba is a dialect (natively ede Yoruba) of West Africa with over 25 million speaker. The traditional area, “Yoruba Land”, Benin and Togo. Yoruba is a Niger-Congo language spoken in West Africa. The number of speakers was estimated around 20 million in this 1990’s and Togo and among other communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and America.

A dictionary (also called word stock, word reference, wordbook, lexicon or vocabulary) is a collection of words in one or more specific language, often listed alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations and other information or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another , also known as a lexicon.

1.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF YORUBA

The Yoruba group assumed to have developed out of in differentiated Volta-Niger populations by the 1stmillennium BC. Settlement of early Yoruba speakers are assumed to correspond to those found in the wider Niger are from about the 4th century BC, especially at Ife.

Standard Yoruba has its origin in 1850’s when Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Africa Bishop. Published a Yoruba grammar and started his translation of the bible.

The various Yoruba dialects in Yoruba land of Nigeria can be classified into the major dialects area; North-WPA Yoruba (NWYU) Abeokuta, Ibadan, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos(Eko) areas.

1.2          Statement of the problem

The existing system of Yoruba translator has the following drawbacks:

·         Error in translating Yoruba words.

·         Difficulty in identifying a good translator

1.3 Aims and Objectives

The objectives of this study are:-

i.      To allow user to know the correct meaning of a particular Yoruba word.

ii.     To train learners/user in the use of electronics dictionary.

iii.    To help user/learner in knowing the proper spelling of words.

iv.   To help students develop a more natural command of Yoruba.

v.     To make user knowledge to be increased along with his/her Yoruba dialect.

vi.   It could be a guide as to know particular word should be used.

vii.  To make user to develop autonomy and confidence in himself/herself.

viii.  To enable students to understand the meaning of words quickly and almost effortlessly. 

TOPIC: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTOMATED YORUBA TRANSLATOR

Chapters: 1 - 5
Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 51

Price: 3000 NGN

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