Lingua Fracas — Making Multilingualism Work

March 17, 2023
3:30 – 5:00 pm
Folwell 118 or online via Zoom

One of the biggest pushbacks against multilingualism in Africa is the idea that it is impossible to implement. English is already "unifying" and encouraging African languages is divisive. In this talk, I use my experience as a linguist, writer, and language activist, as well as real life experiences, to illustrate how multilingualism can become but only workable, but our greatest strength on the continent.

Presenter: Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian writer and linguist, author of two books of poetry, a dictionary of names at YorubaName.com, and many work of nonfiction and research. His work and passion about African language technology span over a decade experience of work in lexicography, translation, creative writing, and documentation. His work has been presented at ICLR, Interspeech, and West African Language Congress conferences. He has also co-edited a book on African linguistics, and continues to collaborate with other researchers on open source solutions for African language speech technologies.In 2016, he was awarded the Special Prize of the Premio Ostana in Cuneo Italy, for his work in language advocacy. You can read more at kolatubosun.com.