What's Next With Maneno?

Maneno is about digitization of Kiswahili and possibly other African languages. ManenoEngine is a translation tool but the data used for translation can be repurposed and used to create other language tools. Therefore, expect some new Kiswahili language tools in the near future.

The key work is on improving the database [size and structure]. The mobile app is almost trivial for now. However, the next level of translation would be to translate phrases, then sentences then complete documents. The "artificial intelligence" way is what some have used but how does the human mind do translation? That's the approach I would prefer - some kind of mental mimicry. Kiswahili is very logically structure so it should be possible to create algorithms that can transpose english grammar to Kiswahili format then translate the words and their tenses and verb forms. 

For the immediate future, the key work is implementing the expanded wordlist and cleaning up some of the broken stuff in the current database. Words should be tagged with parts of speech [nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections] which will require quite some work some of which may be automatable. 

I intend to improve translation usefulness by computing some kind of popularity metric for words and indicating dialects where there are differences in spelling and meaning of the same word. As an example, mwizi and mwivi mean thief. Why the difference? What dialects do the two forms belong to? It should be possible to narrow down translation to specific dialects. It may not be that easy to distinguish between dialects. There is no universal agreement of what these dialects are. One source lists the following:

• Kimrima [around Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania]
• Kimvita [around Mombasa, Kenya]
• Kiunguja [in Zanzibar and Pemba Islands]
• Kiamu [around Lamu, Kenya]
• Kingwana [in south-eastern Congo]
• Kingazija [Comorian dialect: this dialect is significantly different from the other ones]
• Kimtang’ata [to the north of Dar-es-Salaam and south of the Kenyan border]