testimonial

May 6, 2015  by

Here for the possibilities

A certain amount of excitement exists for every project an engineer is involved in, most especially collaborative projects solving a community problem.

The Yoruba Names project has the potential to create a foundation for many other Nigerian/African language technological intervention projects. As it will hopefully be a long-term venture, it presents an unlimited scope for innovation around language and the possibility of bringing together intellectuals for radical innovations.

Just thinking about the sheer potential of such an enterprise was enough a motivation to lend my time and join the already amazing Yoruba Names team as a volunteer developer. Besides, working with a team spanning multiple continents to build an online library of names for a language which is itself spoken across several continents, is an experience not very many projects afford one.

WP_20130604_005To my mind, the idea of satisfying some simple use cases for anyone desiring to find out more about Yoruba names would be enough to justify the time we’ll be spending on this project. Being able to help that one guy trying to study the language and needing a real tonal text to speech library; or that app developer who wants to build a service based off a language name API; or even simply providing a service for a person anywhere in the world who wishes to look up a name: these are some of the possibilities this project offers, and the reason I’m a part of it.

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Tola Odumosu is Web & Mobile Application Developer, you can read more about him at ttola.me or follow him on twitter @ttola

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April 21, 2015  by

From language learner to active volunteer

lailaIt’s odd that I found myself volunteering with Yoruba Names and at the same time it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Like Vanessa in the novel In Dependance by Sarah Ladipo-Manyika, there was a time I used to ask myself “Do your names really mean what you say they do?” (…) “Or is this how you like to charm the girls?”. Now that I’ve started learning Yorùbá, I may not be quite as clueless but that sense of wonder has not abated, for I’ve been fortunate enough to come across the most inspiring teachers both at school and online.

My involvement in this project stems from a growing conviction that the diversity of languages existing in the world needs to be better represented online and that we can all take a part in making this happen. On a more personal level, it’s a source of great enjoyment both to learn more about Yorùbá names along the way, and to do so in the company of other passionate volunteers from various backgrounds.

I am going to be the Bénin connection in the team, working in collaboration with Yorùbá speakers as well as local scholars to document the names found in the country. Apart from preparing for this upcoming field work, I am active on the social media and copy-editing fronts, making sure that the world knows what’s happening with the Yoruba Names Dictionary!

Of course, I’m not so naive as to expect everyone to instantly start caring about the accurate pronunciation of names, and even less so about their meaning and history, but it will be quite an achievement if one day soon, the information is available for anyone to look up on their laptops, phones, tablets, or whichever device will have been invented in the years to come.

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