DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ELECTRONIC YORUBA TRANSLATOR

 

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.

The Yoruba group assumed to have developed out of indifferentiated 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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