The Smart African Language Commons: SALAC.  Selection Criteria.

SHORT COMMUNICATION

Aboubakar YARI¹ & Venus YARI¹

Myra YARI².

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Affiliations:

1. Sabic Consulting, Inc

2. Marketing Body, Biotech tropicana Corporation

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Abstract:

The SMART African Language Commons; SALAC, is an innovative language designed by the Biotech tropicana Systems for its business activities in Africa. The language is designed to include common patterns in african languages into a single language platform useable in all business areas of the Biotech tropicana Systems. An Alphabet for the language was previously released. Short patterns selected form the pattern file was also released. Here, we describe the selection criteria for inclusion of an African language into the SALAC project language database.

Keywords: Language; patterns; communication; business.

Background:

Africa is a continent of 54 countries grouped since the 1960s under a union now called the African Union. Numerous languages are spoken in each country, some of which are written using country specific alphabets. [1} Some of the languages are spoken and or written across country borders. [2} For business communication purpose many countries use foreign languages, many of which of European origin. These foreign languages are not continent wide applicable since they are fragmented and limited to countries of particular business interest to a European country. We innovate a language platform that is continent wide applicable using patterns common to eligible African languages: SALAC.

SALAC is a privately owned language platform designed by the Biotech tropicana Systems for its business operations in Africa on a continent wide scale.    

Description:

The (S)MART (A)frican (LA)nguage (C)ommons or SALAC is a private language platform innovated by the Biotech tropicana Systems for its business communication needs in Africa.

To be eligible for entry into the African Specific Language Database (ASED), a subcomponent of the SMART African Biotechnology Information Centre (SABIC) [3}, a language MUST meet the following criteria:

1. The language must be spoken by at least one hundred thousands (100.000) people living within a 50 miles radius.
2. The people speaking the language must live within the territory of the African Union.
3. Languages spoken by groups eligible for classification as “Group of Special Interest” to the African Union may be eligible if the language  meets criteria 1  above.
4. Languages that failed to meet criteria 1-3 above SHALL be entered in the “Exceptional African Languages” section of the database.

NOTE:

In light of the competitiveness interest of the Biotech tropicana Systems for SALAC and potential conflict of interests, active participation to the development and implementation of SALAC SHALL require”

5. Membership of the Biotech tropicana Systems
6. Non members of the  Biotech tropicana Systems acting as collaborators SHALL demonstrate African Union citizenship or
7. Valid permanent resident immigrant ID card of a member country of the African Union.
8. Foreign nationals of African origin may be admitted under a “SPECIAL STATUS”.

Discussion:

To achieve high competitiveness, we design SALAC using ONLY original African languages in which potential customers will recognize self. Patterns that are common to many languages have higher preference over patterns with limited distributions. Using patterns from multiple languages SALAC is designed as single language. Components of the SALAC platform include a translator capability to convert information from SALAC to African languages, and or to foreign languages. Development and implementation of SALAC is coordinated by SABIC Consulting, Inc, a member of the Biotech tropicana Systems.   

Conclusion:

We describe the selection criteria for including an African language into the SALAC platform, and discuss some key aspects of the commercial importance of SALAC as a continent wide communication tool in Africa.

References:

[1}

[2}

[3} A YARI; V.YARI; M.YARI. The African Specific DNA Database: A System Outline. Biotech tropicana Journal (1):(5):1, 2016