South African event worker Zanele Mkhize struggled for years to maintain her children’s Zulu language skills. They were born to an English father in Oxford, UK, and were educated at a Church of England primary school. Annual three-week visits to Johannesburg enabled them to interact with local speakers, but their fluency declined over time, particularly during their teenage years.
Then one of her kids signed up for Duolingo — a popular edtech language learning platform — after it started offering Zulu language resources last year. Now that he is an adult, he has continued to learn Zulu at his own pace, strengthening his cultural ties.
‘I don’t think they could ever lose their ability to understand Zulu, for I spoke it to them in their youth. Yet their reading, writing and speaking was not so good as they always spoke and studied in English when they grew up,” says Mkhize. “My son was really excited when Duolingo made Zulu available last year because it’s easier to learn that way than hunched over a textbook when you have a busy life.”
In just a few months, Duolingo has attracted more than 30,000 Zulu learners to its platform, making it the second African language to be offered on its app. Swahili, added five years ago, now has over 477,000 subscribers.
More good news for African language learners: Xhosa for English speakers will be released in December this year, bolstering Duolingo’s 50 million users.
Promoting language diversity
Duolingo offers free access with ads. An ad-free version costs £6.49 ($8) per month for UK subscribers. In South Africa, leading local telco Vodacom enables its 45 million customers to use Duolingo for free, eliminating data charges when using the app.
The language learning platform generates revenue from advertising, subscription fees and exam fees. It accumulated $369.5 million in revenue in 2022, according to market research company Statista – an increase of 47% over the previous year. a report by Research and Markets forecasts that the global online language learning market will grow by 20.3% by 2029 to a market size of $31.81 billion.
By including African languages, analysts say Duolingo promotes language diversity while expanding its subscriber base and increasing profits.
“The historical impact of colonialism on African languages has led to a slowdown in the development of local language tools and resources,” said Vukosi Marivate, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
“There is a growing demand for tools that support local languages as people increasingly understand the importance of preserving their linguistic heritage. Organizations such as Duolingo see the potential in developing resources for widely spoken languages such as Swahili and Zulu, making it economically viable to invest in their development. At the same time, people are increasingly teaching their children local languages, despite the challenges of finding resources for them.”
Creating the Zulu course on Duolingo involved tackling a range of different challenges. The company’s learning specialists worked together with course staff from Nal’ibali, a South African literacy organization, to devise methods to teach unique aspects of Zulu. This collaboration was crucial to deal with Zulu’s three click consonants, the fifteen noun classes, and the way Zulu words are structured by combining smaller components.
Advertising potential
As more people speak and learn African languages, advertisers are likely to switch. In Africa, many online businesses could lose potential customers – especially in rural areas – who prefer to use their native language or find the English and French interfaces on mobile devices too complicated. The report Can’t read, won’t buy from research firm Common Sense Advisory revealed that 40% of respondents would not make a purchase in a language other than their native language.
With Africa’s population doubling by 2050, the immense market potential should attract investors and marketing professionals who are more aware of the need to understand and interact with local languages, said Mukindi Lambani, CEO of edtech startup Ambani Africa . This company uses augmented reality (AR), animation and gamification to teach young students seven African languages while also providing access to online tutors.
“Language learning companies in Africa are diversifying their approaches, focusing on early childhood development, adult education and corporate institutions, with the overarching goal of empowering individuals to learn a variety of subjects in their native language,” says Lambani.
Africa’s online learning platform industry is projected to reach $380 million this year, according to Statista, and sales are expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.10% through 2027, encouraging a large number of new entrants to the market.
“Despite the digital under-representation of African languages, the market has room for numerous players, each playing a vital role in building a solid foundation for language learning and cultural appreciation. This dynamic landscape will revolutionize the way companies engage with African audiences, creating a more inclusive and vibrant future,” says Lambani.
Ambani Africa’s unique approach combines physical books with AR technology, creating an immersive learning experience for children. When paired with a smartphone camera, characters seem to jump off the pages, engaging users and guiding them through a series of interactive educational tasks.
Add artificial intelligence
The rapid advancement of AI tools has led Silicon Valley giants to invest in African languages. In recent years, major technology companies have recognized their value, driven by the increasing demand for localized content and services. Google actively supports Natural Language Processing (NLP), an AI platform that enables computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language research for African languages, with the goal of making online content more accessible and inclusive.
Twelve African languages are available in the Google Translate app for iOS and Android, including Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, three of the most widely spoken languages in West Africa. The web browser company Mozilla recently included the Twi language in its open-source linguistic repository, Common Voice, which collects input from real language speakers. This initiative aims to improve speech recognition technology and promote a wider range of local languages on the internet, challenging the dominance of European languages as the main – or only – method of online communication.
“With the rise of grassroots AI organizations such as AfricaNLP And Masakhanethis has also made it more accessible for the big tech giants to access researchers in those communities and build even better tools over time,” says Marivate.
As more people speak some of Africa’s 2,000 living languages - about a third of all languages spoken in the world – and efforts to preserve this rich heritage in the digital age continue, the potential to monetize these languages increases and related products. Advances in AI tools, which are now able to process extensive data sets and allow software to communicate in different languages, have unleashed new market opportunities.
The open source movement Ghanaian NLP offers keyboards for smartphones designed to facilitate writing in African languages. Simultaneously Kenyan startup Abantu AI has created a ChatGPT3 based speech to text tool for language learning, customer service and translation.
Mymanu Click S, developed by Ghanaian-British entrepreneur Danny Manu, uses NLP and AI technologies to enable real-time translation through earbuds. When paired with a smartphone, these earbuds use advanced algorithms to process spoken languages, promoting efficient communication between different languages. With Yoruba and Swahili support slated for this spring, the device aims to accommodate the African continent’s growing trade with Europe and Asia.
During the coronavirus pandemic, many companies turned to AI translation tools to communicate with business partners due to travel restrictions. “Soon a person in Ghana or Nigeria will be able to receive a voice note from a partner in Germany or China, and the recipient will hear it in their own language, eliminating the need for a personal translator,” says Danny Manu.
“AI and what we can do with language now is a game changer. If you want to learn a language using online tools, you should be able to. And if you want to have a business partner in China, you have to be able to go ahead and get your business done,” says Manu.
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