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Comment by najirama | Hacker News Reader

You tell the poor fellow to focus on his project, and then give him four ways to distract himself! Nevertheless...

Regarding #3 :

This is an excellent but intractable idea. The sheer number of languages in that region is too staggering to capture even a majority percentage in such a manner; and it would be of little use to any but the academics in linguistics or cultural anthropology.

Better would be a tool that completely encapsulates the vocabulary and grammar of the main languages in that region, so that they may be learned online. There are no sufficient tools that do so at present, either online or in bookstores - and the children of the diaspora, and their children and so forth, could/would make great use of such a thing.

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I added that mostly for variety, my two personal interests are medical records for the ID-less (specially pediatric medical records.) And vigilante education reform with games, song and dance. I can talk about those two all day.

The principle behind my idea for language documentation is that logging diversity, in one Nigeria-wide record, also underscores the equality of the Nigerian people as a whole, across religious, linguistic and clan divides. Right now most people identify with one of few macro-clans, something that aborted our own Somali state.

Documenting dialects and noting the nuanced differences between people makes an amusement, a public spectacle if you will, of what could otherwise have been a matter of tribal pride and differentiation to feel superior over others. I didn't become a "Somali" until I saw the British records, and how identical we were to them.

Empower the minority sub-cultures, and the large clusters come apart. Give voice to individuality, and local culture at the micro-level, and, paradoxically, the larger group identity becomes stronger. Could you imagine how better off Africa would be if people didn't vote along clan lines?

[Edit:

I gotta get ready for a flight, but I really wanna keep this conversation going, hopefully with Oo's involvement.]

Ah - I see where you were going and totally agree with your sentiments. In my opinion, tribalism is simultaneously Africa's (nay, the World's) greatest potential catalyst to overcome its tremendous problems, and also its most devastating weakness. That said, the extent language plays in such tribalism is that part of the world is debatable, as English is Nigeria's national language and the natives communicate extensively in pidgin dialects.

But you provoke interesting questions; Is it possible to mitigate or eliminate tribalism on any level, anywhere in the world? And if so, can software be integral to the process, or in any way accelerate it?

My reading of history tells me that favorable outcomes are possible in regards to both questions, however the form of such software is at the moment beyond my conception.

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