Experts Want Computer Capture Of Language Symbols

Participants at a four-day
conference have called on indigenous language teachers to work with computer experts to capture such language sounds and diacritic symbols with computers.
They said that using the information and communication technology to capture language sounds and symbols would encourage the youth to show more interest in local languages.
The recommendations are contained in a communiqué signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the group, Mrs Grace Ugo and Mr Abah James respectively in Aba, Abia State on Monday.
The experts who met at the National Institute for Nigerian Languages, Aba, had “Developing and sustaining Nigerian languages in the ICT age” as the theme of the conference.
They beamed their light on the need for Nigerian languages to develop terminologies in science, technology and communications to make local languages useful to others.
The experts called on parents to speak indigenous languages to their children at home to enable them to have a firm foundation in life through their language mastery and urged teachers to work hard at being computer compliant to be employable in the language sector as such prerequisite would soon be applied in the employment of teachers.
The group further called on the government to include acculturation programmes in the school system to teach the students local languages and cultures using ICT.
They counselled the government to award scholarships to students studying local languages to encourage them to take the career part to sustain local languages.
Furthermore, the group said the government should fund the development of a national policy on languages to ensure their sustenance.
They also called on the government to restore the provision of 1977 which indentified three major languages for students at the JSS level.