Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, Friday, added Hausa language, Fula, and two others, Maltese and Corsican to Facebook, making the social media platform become available in more than 100 languages.
Zuckerberg announced this yesterday where he expressed optimism that the addition has halted the disappearance of some of the added languages. “Facebook is now available in more than 100 languages — with more than one billion people using a language other than English! Today we added Fula, Maltese and Corsican.” “Our community makes this possible. Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have worked together to find the right translations for words and phrases in the Facebook interface.
Because the idea of a “Like” in English may mean something different in Arabic or Japanese.” The Fula language, also known as Fulani, is a non-tonal language spoken in Northeastern Nigeria and in a continuum that stretches across some 20 countries of Western Africa and Central Africa.
Spoken as a first language by the Fula people, it is also spoken as a second language by various peoples like the Kirdi of Northern Cameroon.
Recall that Zuckerberg who visited Nigeria on August 30th where he met with software developers and ICT entrepreneurs in Lagos pledged to use Nigerian languages in offering services on Facebook. However, on the reasons for the added languages, he said, ” For people to share what matters to them and see what matters to the people they care about, they need services available in a language they know. Some of the languages we’ve added don’t have meaningful presence on the internet.” “Others, like Corsican, are in danger of disappearing altogether, according to UNESCO.”
Zuckerberg also reiterated this resolve to make the platform available to people no matter where they are on the globe. “So thanks to everyone in our community for helping us hit this milestone of 100 languages! We’ll keep working to open up our community to everyone – no matter where they live or what language they speak.”