LOCALIZATION REQUEST: DAGBANI LANGUAGE

[Sadike25]

Welcome to the Common Voice Community !

Common Voice aims to make speech technology accessible to everyone by building an open sourced dataset of labelled voice data that is representative of languages, variants and accents spoken across the world. This template helps us to know how your language could participate in the Common Voice Project. There are three sections of this form, once you have filled out a section please click the checkbox. If you have any issues please contact commonvoice@mozilla.org.

Pontoon Set-up

To start a language on Common Voice volunteers localise our platform via Pontoon and create sentence corpus’ of cc0 text.

Language name Dagbani

Language code dag

Language size 4 Million

Plural forms

1.kuɣ' yini 2.kuɣa ayi 3.kuɣa ata 4.kuɣa anahi 5.kuɣa anu 10.kuɣili pia 20.Kuɣili pishi 100.kuɣa kɔbiga

1000. Kuɣa tuhilli M bi nya kuɣili tingbani ni. N nyala kuɣili tiŋa N nyala kuɣa pia tingbani ni N nyala kuɣa tingbani ni

Pontoon manager https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/T-5yvJlvYdFM9erNWvjYMZULVsA/

Language Script latin

Sentence Collection Requirements

On the Common Voice Platform contributors on the platform read out public domain sentences generated through sentence collection. Sentence collection is a crucial part in launching languages on Common Voice. To support the equitable participation of languages of Common Voice we have introduced three new sentence collection requirements bands.

Sentence Requirement Band

• [x] Band B

Creating Community

1. [optional to share] Why do you want to take part in Common Voice ? I am the West African Language Coordinator at Art+Feminism and a steering committee member of the Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub. I founded the Dagbani Language Wikipedia community and I hope to use the community to contribute to the Mozilla Common Voice project.

As a Dagbani language activist and researcher at Global Voices, I am passionate about getting the Dagbani language added to the Common Voice.

In addition to that, I am a member of the Ghana NLP community working on text recognition and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) application that relies heavily on data sets like the Common Voice data. Getting more audio files on Common Voice will come handy for our projects.

2. [optional to share] Would you like to have a follow up conversation regarding community building ? Yes, I would love to have a follow-up conversation to learn more about how we can build our community to contribute more to the Mozilla Common Voice.

[ftyers]

Dear @Sadike25, thank you for your interest in Common Voice! I have enabled Dagbani for translation in Pontoon, could you add a translation to Common Voice and I will add you as translator.

As a language in band B, you will need 2000 public domain sentences contributed via sentence collector to launch. In addition the translation needs to be at 75%. Please feel free to join us on Matrix for any questions you may have.

Once we've verified that you are able to translate I will close this issues.

[Sadike25]

Thank you @ftyers !

[Sadike25]

Hi Francis,

Thank you so much for adding Dagbani to Mozilla Common Voice. I tried to add sentences, but I couldn't find Dagbani in the list.

Can we schedule a call for more clarification?

Many thanks,

Sadik,

On Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 1:21 PM Francis Tyers @.***> wrote:

Dear @Sadike25 https://github.com/Sadike25, thank you for your interest in Common Voice! I have enabled Dagbani for translation in Pontoon https://pontoon.mozilla.org/dag/, could you add a translation to Common Voice https://pontoon.mozilla.org/projects/common-voice/ and I will promote you to translator.

As a language in band B, you will need 2000 public domain sentences contributed via sentence collector https://common-voice.github.io/sentence-collector/ to launch. In addition the translation needs to be at 75%. Please feel free to join us on Matrix https://app.element.io/#/room/%23common-voice:mozilla.org.

Once we've verified that you are able to translate I will close this issues.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues/3845#issuecomment-1294994483, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJYEDPG2OGL5QUUMYWMJHBTWFPHPPANCNFSM6AAAAAARQRSKL4 . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

-- Sadik Shahadu Executive Director Dagbani Wikimedians User Group https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dagbani_Wikimedians_User_Group West African Language Coordinator Art + Feminism https://www.artandfeminism.org/ Advisory Board Member Open Education for a Better World https://oe4bw.org/advisory-board/ Call/Whatsapp: +233244666136 Twitter: @Sadike25 https://twitter.com/Sadike25 Certified Nonprofit Technology Professional https://api.accredible.com/v1/frontend/credential_website_embed_image/certificate/30777145 Recent publication: A global outlook to the interruption of education due to COVID-19 pandemic: Navigating in a time of uncertainty and crisis http://www.asianjde.com/ojs/index.php/AsianJDE/article/view/462

Yes, we can!

[ftyers]

Can you join us on Matrix? And we can schedule the call there. In addition, can you try adding a translation so I can add you as a translation manager for the locale?

Regarding Dagbani in sentence collector, you can try looking for the language code instead of the language name, but it can take a while to propagate.

[Sadike25]

Thank you so much @ftyers. I have been able to added some Dagbani sentences in the sentence collector by selecting the language code dag. The question now is where do I add the translations? Was I supposed to add the text in Dagbani and English or add Dagbani text and provide English translation? I have also joined the matrix channel.

Sadik Cheers!

[ftyers]

Thanks! I've added you as a translator to Pontoon.

In terms of the sentences collected, you only need Dagbani, you don't need the English translations.

[Sadike25]

Hi @ftyers, I am back to this conversation.

[Ngue-Um]

Dear Sadike,

My name is Emmanuel Ngue Um and I am currently leading a voice data collection project for under-served African languages. We are planning an event in Yaoundé, Cameroon, very soon. The event will bring together participants representing different languages across Africa for a six-day intensive on-site data collection. Dagbani has been selected as one of the languages in question. As we will be using Common Voice as the data-collecting interface, and given that you already requested Dagbani to be created on Mozilla's Pontoon, we would be grateful if you would be willing to collaborate with us in this initiative. We have a team of two young enthusiasts and indigenous language champions from the Dagbani community who will be joining us. They have already compiled sentences which will be used as prompts in the interface and are also working on translating the interface. We believe your collaboration in this endeavour would be invaluable, and we look forward to hearing from you.

[Sadike25]

Hi Emmanuel,

Thank you for reaching out thanks for sharing.

My name is Sadik Shahadu. I am the executive director and co-founder of the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group https://www.dagbaniwikimedia.org/index.html, a young not-for-profit organization based in Ghana and working to support the 16 Mabia languages spoken across Ghana, Benin and Burkina Faso on Wikimedia and the internet at large. I also volunteer for the Ghana NLP to include Dagbani https://openreview.net/pdf?id=lje9lI9zV8 and Gurene datasets for the Khaya app https://azunre.medium.com/khaya-african-language-translation-and-speech-recognition-ai-demonstrates-major-improvements-e13d9fb26fb8. Since 2019, I have successfully onboarded 5 out of the 16 Mabia languages onto Wikipedia (Dagbani Wikipedia https://dag.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol%C9%94%C9%A3u, Gurene Wikipedia https://gur.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C9%9Bgezure, Dagaare Wikipedia https://dga.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gamp%C9%9Bl%C9%9B_zu, Kusaal Wikipedia https://kus.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_lakir and Moore Wikipedia https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/mos/Main_Page).

I am very excited to hear that Dagbani has been selected for the workshop, and I am open to knowing what kind of support you need from me. I will be happy to participate in the workshop if it is not too late.

Also, it would be nice to know who the Dagbani language data collectors are.

Warm regards, Sadik.

On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 9:46 PM NGUE UM @.***> wrote:

Dear Sadike,

My name is Emmanuel Ngue Um and I am currently leading a voice data collection project for under-served African languages. We are planning an event https://inhunumaf.hypotheses.org/964 in Yaoundé, Cameroon, very soon. The event will bring together participants representing different languages across Africa for a six-day intensive on-site data collection. Dagbani has been selected as one of the languages in question. As we will be using Common Voice as the data-collecting interface, and given that you already requested Dagbani to be created on Mozilla's Pontoon, we would be grateful if you would be willing to collaborate with us in this initiative. We have a team of two young enthusiasts and indigenous language champions from the Dagbani community who will be joining us. They have already compiled sentences which will be used as prompts in the interface and are also working on translating the interface. We believe your collaboration in this endeavour would be invaluable, and we look forward to hearing from you.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues/3845#issuecomment-2316126393, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJYEDPGTUYKKYEW55G6F2BTZTYSKJAVCNFSM6AAAAAARQRSKL6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDGMJWGEZDMMZZGM . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[Ngue-Um]

Dear Sadike,

Thank you for your quick response. I am putting you in contact with Eliette (eliette1404@gmail.com), my Project Manager, who will be happy to provide you with more details about the workshop and also discuss with you the possibility of your in-person participation.

[Sadike25]

Sounds great.

I will be on standby.

Sadik Shahadu Executive Director| Dagbani Wikimedians User Group Advisory Board Member| Open Education for a Better World Call/Whatsapp: +233244666136 Twitter: @Sadike25 Certified Nonprofit Technology Professional Yes, we can!

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 at 5:09 AM, NGUE UM @.***> wrote:

Dear Sadike,

Thank you for your quick response. I am putting you in contact with Eliette @.***), my Project Manager, who will be happy to provide you with more details about the workshop and also discuss with you the possibility of your in-person participation.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues/3845#issuecomment-2316727074, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJYEDPCO2M3WJGCVBENOGULZT2UKBAVCNFSM6AAAAAARQRSKL6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDGMJWG4ZDOMBXGQ . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

[Ngue-Um]

Dear Sadik,

Can you send a very short email to eliette1404@gmail.com and copy it to ngueum@gmail.com, just so that we get your email address and can insert it in our database?