Neglect or weak investment in the preservation, appreciation and enhancement of Angolan culture has been one of the greatest social concerns as globalization happens more and more rapidly due to the easy access to various information by television channels, magazines, radio, newspapers, human relations and more recently, information technologies.
Since the various cultural traits, such as art, handicrafts, and others ... the learning, practice and preservation of national languages or dialects have been a major challenge, especially for Angolan Youth. Although there are several calls already made, the question currently being asked is this: is it possible to use the various technological solutions to create disruption in that social sector?
Well, in this article, we want to answer this question by presenting the young Flávio Barros, of Cabindan origin and currently living in South Africa, who, realizing this need, and with a strong passion for the cultural and linguistic empowerment of Angolans, who proposed to revolutionize the paradigm by using its programming skills to create apps and digital dictionaries of national languages to promote cultural education among other young people. Its mission began on July 09 of last year (2020), when this e the renowned priest José Silvino Sambo Mazunga - one of the great writers of the culture of the people of Cabinda, launched the digital dictionary-Ibinda that broke the record of more than 400 Downloads in 1 week only, a fact that led the young programmer to continue the development of more features such as Grammar– for learning grammatical rules (Phonetics, spelling, morphology and syntax), Quizzes – interactive questionnaires, e-Commerce - For online sale of books and other support materials, among other features. Emphasizing that Ibinda is the dialect spoken by the people of Cabinda, and also well known as Fyote.
Four months later, the application already had more than 1000 downloads for Android devices and more than 500 downloads for iPhones, taking into account that this last version was released on November 20, 2020. Still believing that information technologies have potential to transform our cultural context, young Flávio is preparing to leave his comfort zone, and expand the project to the other existing national languages, to disruptively and innovatively promote and defend our cultural heritage. other factors of your bet are the various Feedback that it has received in its day-to-day by the users of the application that already goes beyond the people of Cabinda, and has continuously attracted the attention of all lovers of Angolan culture in general. With this and some other examples, it becomes once again clear to everyone that technology can still serve society in general as an indispensable educational tool to promote our Angolan culture.
Recall that in Angola, there are about 8 main national languages, namely UMBUNDU, KIMBUNDU, KIKONGO, FYOTE / IBINDA, N'GANGUELA, NHANEKA, MUHUMBI, TCHOKWE, KWANHAMA, spoken by the respective ethnic groups and have dialects corresponding to the ethnic subgroups .
Download Ibinda Dictionary
IOS: https://bit.ly/dicionarioibinda
Android: https://bit.ly/2ZRF9nt
Article written by Oscar António, published in MenosFios with authorization from the author.
