Hasil untuk "African languages and literature"

Njana Masanja

Makala hii inahusu uchunguzi wa mofolojia na semantiki katika majina ya ng’ombe kwa kigezo cha rangi hususani katika jamiilugha ya Ginantuzu. Lengo kuu la makala hii ni kubainisha maumbo yaliyomo katika majina ya ng’ombe, maana na dhima za majina ya ng’ombe. Utafiti huu ulifanywa katika mkoa wa Simiyu, wilaya ya Bariadi vijijini. Jumla ya vijiji viwili vilipitiwa na mtafiti. Vijiji hivyo ni Ihusi na Nkindwabiye. Sampuli ya watoataarifa sita (6) iliteuliwa na mtafiti kwa ajili ya mahojiano ili kukidhi lengo la makala hii. Kwa kutumia usampulishaji lengwa wastani wa watoataarifa (3) kwa kila kijiji walipatikana. Watoataarifa waliteuliwa kwa kuzigatia kigezo cha usampulishaji lengwa. Data za uwandani zilikusanywa kwa kutumia mbinu ya mahojiano, ushuhudiaji na mapitio ya nyaraka za maktabani na mitandaoni. Ili kufanikisha kazi hii, makala ilitumia nadharia ya Semeotiki iliyoasisiwa na Ferdinand de Saussure. Aidha, Mkabala wa kitaamuli ndio umetumiwa kubainisha maumbo, maana na dhima za majina ya ng’ombe. Matokeo yameonesha kuwa majina ya ng’ombe dume yameundwa kwa mashina ya ng’ombe jike kwa kuongezewa mofu tangulizi inayobeba maana ya dume. Jumla ya alomofu tatu zinazobanisha jinsia ya kiume zilipatikana. Alomofu hizo ni gί-, gid- na gida-. Mwisho makala hii inapendekeza uchunguzi zaidi wa kiisimu kuhusu utoaji wa majina ya mifugo kuendelea kufanyika ili kuimarisha mawasiliano katika jamii mbalimbali za wafugaji na kuyahifadhi majina hayo kwa ajili ya vizazi vijavyo.

Ernest Daimon Haonga

Makala hii inachunguza mchango wa Teknolojia ya Habari na Mawasiliano (TEHAMA) na changamoto zake katika ufundishaji na ujifunzaji wa Kiswahili nchini Tanzania. Shabaha kuu ilikuwa kubainisha namna TEHAMA inavyochangia katika mbinu za ufundishaji, kuongeza ufanisi wa ujifunzaji, na kuimarisha mawasiliano ya kielimu katika mazingira ya kidijitali. Makala hii ilitumia mkabala wa kimaelezo, ambapo data zilikusanywa kupitia hojaji na mahojiano. Watoataarifa waliohusika ni walimu wa Kiswahili, wanafunzi kutoka vyuo teule vya elimu ya juu, wataalamu wa lugha na wataalamu wa TEHAMA walioteuliwa kwa kutumia mbinu ya usampulishaji lengwa. Makala iliongozwa na Nadharia ya Ujifunzaji wa Kielektroniki, inayosisitiza jinsi watu wanavyopokea, kuchakata na kuhifadhi maarifa kupitia vifaa vya kidijitali. Nadharia hii inaeleza kwamba ujifunzaji wa lugha unaweza kuboreshwa kupitia matumizi ya maandishi, picha, sauti, na mwingiliano wa kidijitali. Matokeo ya utafiti huu yanaonesha kuwa TEHAMA imeongeza motisha ya wanafunzi, kupanua mbinu za ufundishaji, na kurahisisha upatikanaji wa rasilimali za kujifunzia msamiati wa Kiswahili. Hata hivyo, changamoto kama upungufu wa vifaa, ujuzi mdogo wa walimu, na ubovu wa miundombinu ya mtandao bado zinakwamisha ufanisi wa matumizi ya TEHAMA katika ufundishaji na ujifunzaji wa msamiati wa lugha. Kwa jumla, makala inadhihirisha kuwa TEHAMA ni nyenzo muhimu katika ufundishaji na ujifunzaji wa msamiati wa Kiswahili licha ya changamoto za miundombinu zilizopo.

Nomsa J. Skosana, Respect Mlambo

The scarcity of adequate resources for South African languages poses a huge challenge for their functional development in specialised fields such as science and technology. The study examines the Autshumato Machine Translation (MT) Web Service, created by the Centre for Text Technology at the North-West University. This software supports both formal and informal translations as a machine-aided human translation tool. We investigate the system in terms of its advantages and limitations and suggest possible solutions for South African languages. The results show that the system is essential as it offers high-speed translation and operates as an open-source platform. It also provides multiple translations from sentences, documents and web pages. Some South African languages were included whilst others were excluded and we find this to be a limitation of the system. We also find that the system was trained with a limited amount of data, and this has an adverse effect on the quality of the output. The study suggests that adding specialised parallel corpora from various contemporary fields for all official languages and involving language experts in the pre-editing of training data can be a major step towards improving the quality of the system’s output. The study also outlines that developers should consider integrating the system with other natural language processing applications. Finally, the initiatives discussed in this study will help to improve this MT system to be a more effective translation tool for all the official languages of South Africa.

T. Alemayehu, M. Hailemariam

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci are a global challenge currently as reported by the World Health Organization. It is also important to recognize that combating antimicrobial resistance needs to recognize the interconnections between people, animals, plants and their shared environment in creating public health, the so-called One Health approach. Although the presence of VRE has been described in many regions of the world, there is a lack of comprehensive data indicating their prevalence of in Africa. Therefore, this study aimed to aggregate the result of studies describing VRE reported across multiple regions in Africa. A literature search was conducted on PubMed, Google scholar, and Hinari with the term “Vancomycin resistance enterococcus in Africa” on August 1–3, 2019. All available articles were downloaded to “Endnote version 7.1” then to Microsoft Word 2013. Articles determined to meet our criteria for the review was extracted to Microsoft Excel 2013. Those articles that reported the prevalence of vancomycin resistance Enterococcus obtained from all sample types and published from 2010 to 2019 in the English language were included for the review. A meta-analysis was conducted with OpenMetaAnalyst version R.3.1.0 software. The effect size was determined using a binary random effect model and statically significant considered when p < 0.05. Heterogeneity determined with the inconsistency index. A leave one out analysis used to perform the sensitivity analysis. There were 151 articles identified from the database searches; of this, 36 articles included after extensive review with two independent authors. Out of 4073 samples collected, 1488 isolates identified with an overall pooled prevalence of VRE 26.8% (95% CI; 10.7–43.0%) in Africa with a one-health perspective. The analysis showed that considerable heterogeneity among the studies (I2 = 99.97%; p < 0.001). Subgroup analysis in-country, African region, laboratory method, year of publication, and sample source showed that a high prevalence was identified from South Africa (74.8%), South African regions (74.8%), PCR (959.2%), 2010–2015 years (30.3%) and environmental (52.2%), respectively. This meta-analysis indicates that there was a high-pooled prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in African. A lot should be done to prevent and control the transmission of vancomycin resistance enterococci to a human being from the environment in the continent.

R. Steven, C. Pickering, J. Guy Castley

Silindiwe Sibanda

Mohamed H. Elshahidi, Nada Monir, Mohamed A Elzhery et al.

Objective To systematically search the literature and to summarize current evidence pertaining to the epidemiology of SCI in the MENA region incidence, gender, age, type of the injury and etiology of the injury. Methods Embase, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost were systematically searched from their dates of inception till July 2017 for English and non-English language articles. Also, regional databases were searched. Data were extracted from eligible articles and pooled under the random effect model using R. References of the included articles were also screened for potentially relevant studies. Results We identified 29 articles from seven countries in the MENA region (Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar). The mean age of the cases at time of injury was 31.32 (95% CI: 28.74-33.91). The random pooled annual incidence of TSCI per million was 23.24 (95% CI: 5.64-49.21). Pooled proportion of male gender was 77% (95% CI 73-80%) of the cases. Complete paraplegia was the most common type of injury. Thoracic level injury predominated. Also, the most commonly affected age group was 20-29 then 30-39. Motor vehicle accidents were found to be the leading cause of injury, then falls, gunshot, violence and sports. Further meta-regression analysis showed no association between age and etiology of the injury. Conclusion This review shows lack of evidence about SCI in most countries of the MENA region. More epidemiological studies are needed.

Mariska Coetzee

Hein Vanhee

Professor Jan Vansina looks back at the early years of his rich academic career as a historian of Africa and more specifically at his field research among the Kuba peoples of the DR Congo. Learning their language and participating in the boys’ initiation allowed him to become a deeply involved participant observer. He worked on the current anthropological themes of the day, and more importantly, he also collected oral material for an innovative historiography that would later inspire hundreds of students and researchers. Blinded by cultural prejudice, missionaries and colonial administrators did not understand what he was doing, and saw him as a hopeless case, but Kuba people came to accept him everywhere in the country. As a junior researcher, Vansina had been sent to the Kuba kingdom because of the great reputation of its art in the West. He found out that this same reputation had played a crucial role in the survival of the kingdom, in particular after its initial encounter with the terror of King Leopold’s Free State. Kuba kings had learned to deal with the realities of the Belgian Congo, using their revered art for clever diplomacy and bending the model of indirect rule to their own benefit.

M. A. Ag Ahmed, M. Gagnon, Louise Hamelin-Brabant et al.

Loraine Prinsloo

Dong Niu

“Africans in Guangzhou/China” seems to have become a buzzword in international studies and China studies in the last decade. While there has been a large body of academic papers on Africans in Guangzhou, they described the daily lives of Africans with a common assumption that Africans are “immigrants.” This perception is at odds with the Chinese legal system and Africans’ self-definition. Based on continuous ethnographic fieldwork and following sporadic interviews with Africans in Guangzhou, this article argues that the classification and definition of migration produced by scholars should be used in the specific context of the destination countries, with consideration of the viewpoints of legal settings and the researched groups themselves. This article introduces the concept of “transient” in China, a typical non-immigration country, to describe Africans in Guangzhou who travel between Africa and China without desire to integrate into Chinese society and without possibility to be integrated into Chinese society.

D. Gachago, C. Livingston, E. Ivala

Editorial Office

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Anthea Van Jaarsveld

Ward Warmerdam, Meine Pieter van Dijk

Chinese petty traders are the most popular and yet most controversial foreign population that most Africans meet and engage with on a regular basis. Although the quality of their goods is suspect, their contribution of affordable goods to some African societies is recognized. There has been much discontent directed towards them, especially by small traders, because they are seen as undercutting local traders, not contributing to the local economy, and only interested in short-term gain. This paper examines the role of Chinese traders in Kampala, Uganda and their contributions to that country’s economy according to a number of economic indicators as informed by the survey that the authors conducted in Kampala in 2012. It also analyses the Ugandan government’s attitude toward these traders, the policies it implements, and the prospects for further investment in Uganda.

Andrason, Alexander

This paper studies the complexity of L(eft) D(islocation). It demonstrates that the function that is crosslinguistically associated with LD is conveyed in Arabic by a set of LD constructions. In the analyzed corpus, these constructions belong to two main types: Clitic LD and Subject LD. Some LD constructions formally and/or functionally overlap with other grammatical categories, especially with fronting. Overall, the absence of a feature proposed for the LD prototype does not imply that a new category, different from LD, must be postulated. The overlap between LD and fronting is explained as a typical effect of language complexity, which can be dealt with if the system of forms and meanings is understood as fuzzy.

O. Adeniyi, Parimalane Yogeswaran, G. Wright et al.

Introduction The factors affecting the control of diabetes are complex and varied. However, little is documented in the literature on the overall knowledge of diabetic patients about glycaemic control. This study explored the patients’ perspectives on the challenges of glycaemic control. Methods In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seventeen purposively selected diabetic patients with HBA1c ≥ 9% at Mthatha General Hospital, South Africa. The interviews were conducted in the isiXhosa language and were audiotaped. Two experienced qualitative researchers independently transcribed and translated the interviews. Thematic content analysis was conducted. Results Three main themes emerged: overall knowledge of diabetes and treatment targets, factors affecting the control of diabetes and how glycaemic control could be improved. The majority of the participants demonstrated poor knowledge of treatment targets for diabetes. The majority of the participants reported that lack of money affected their control of diabetes. Some of the participants reported that the nearest clinics do not have doctors; hence, they are compelled to travel long distances to see doctors. Conclusion Poverty, lack of knowledge and access to doctors affect the control of diabetes in the rural communities of Mthatha, South Africa. The government should address recruitment and retention of doctors in primary health care.

S. Bertacco

Lesli H Cleveland, J. Oetting