Scientist develops keyboards in Nigerian languages

A scientist has developed linguascript keyboards that could text and type in Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba languages to ensure Nigerian languages don’t go into extinction.
 
The author of the project, Nnenna Nwosu, who is a senior lecturer at the Federal University of Ndufu-Alieke Ikwo (FUNAI), Ebonyi State, explained that the plug and play keyboards incorporate all the alphabets of the three major languages.
 
Nwosu says that the innovation is a specialised keyboard that uses numerals representing vowels and consonants instead of the conventional Latin orthography, adding that each number represents a letter, which could type or send messages using the number.
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The project, presented at the institution’s exhibition stand during the just-concluded National Science, Technology and Innovation Expo 2018 in Abuja, got the third best overall in the tertiary institution category.
 
She said the idea was borne out of the fact that illiterate and semi-illiterate people tend to recognise and retain numerals faster and longer than letters as they can easily and those of there contacts.
 
The project author further explained that the linguascript keyboard was designed for both mobile phones and computer keyboard accessories to make indigenous languages accessible to everybody so as to afford IT users more reasons to think and type in their own languages.
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