Photo provided by Faisal Ali
Meet Faisal Ali, who is also better known as DaSupremo on Wikipedia. Since 2014, he has been working as a volunteer across the Wikimedia movement. Most recently, he started the Ghanaian Pidgin Wikipedia together with team members Maxwell Beganim (User:Xibitgh) and Stephen Dakyi (User:NanaYawBotar). The site was approved by the Language Committee in April 2023 to be made available to readers of this language.
Faisal will be managing the @DigiAfricanLang Twitter account during the period of June 22-28, 2023 to share his story about using Wikimedia platforms to share knowledge in Ghanaian Pidgin.
Rising Voices (RV): What is the current state of your language both online and offline?
Faisal Ali (FA): Ghanaian Pidgin is spoken mostly by the youth in Ghana. Even though the language is not standardized, we in the community have developed a system where anyone can suggest how we spell certain words. The community then settles on a particular spelling. In that case, we are trying to standardize it on Wikipedia. We currently have over 600 well-written articles by volunteers in the Ghanaian Pidgin on Wikipedia.
RV: What are your motivations for seeing your language present in digital spaces?
FA: My motivation began when I saw the Nigerian Pidgin known as Naija on Wikipedia. I contacted the Nigerian lead Olushola and discussed with him how we can ‘merge’ the two languages together. He suggested there is a vast difference between the Ghanaian Pidgin and the Nigerian Pidgin, so we can develop our own on the Incubator. That was when I contacted few colleagues such as NanaYawBotar, Xibitgh and Jesse Akrofi-Asiedu (User:JWale2) and they supported the idea. The rest was history.
RV: Describe some of the challenges that prevent your language from being fully utilized online
FA: First of all, getting volunteers was a real challenge because anyone we contacted either had demands for compensation or the common one “What is in for me?” Also, getting resources for the language was a real challenge till Amir Aharoni [Senior Strategist at the Wikimedia Foundation] suggested I find resources such as a poetry, books, stories, etc. which has been written in the Ghanaian Pidgin.
RV: What concrete steps do you think can be taken to encourage younger people to begin learning their language or keep using their language?
FA: I think local languages should be taken seriously in schools because that’s our identity and culture and there is a need to preserve them. Also, we should teach the younger people our languages and speak the local languages at home with them rather than foreign languages.
