Google South Africa has launched an “AI glossary” that translates and standardises 100 artificial intelligence terms into Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans. Created in collaboration with the Pan South African Language Board, the project seeks to make digital and technological discussions easier to understand for South Africans who communicate primarily in local languages.
Linguistic and Digital Inclusion
At the Johannesburg launch, Google South Africa Country Director Kabelo Makwane described the glossary as a step toward ensuring that everyone can participate in the digital world, regardless of the language they speak. “For many non-English speakers, conversations about technology can feel removed and inaccessible,” he said. “The language of technology has not yet caught up with the depth and richness of our local languages.”
Connecting Technology to Cultural Identity
The glossary will enable South Africans to engage more confidently in discussions about artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. Makwane noted that language plays an emotional and cultural role in how people connect with technology, adding: “When we communicate in someone’s home language, we connect directly with their heart.”
Building on Africa’s Digital Inclusion Efforts
This launch follows similar initiatives in Swahili and reflects Google’s broader effort to promote digital inclusion across Africa. By translating AI terminology into local languages, Google hopes to ensure Africans are not only users of technology but also active participants in shaping its future informed by their own linguistic and cultural identities.
The company plans to expand the glossary in the coming months, adding more AI terms and additional South African indigenous languages. The initiative reinforces a growing understanding that access to technology begins with comprehension and that language is key to participation in the digital economy.
Through this project, Google South Africa is helping to create a more inclusive technological landscape one where language connects rather than divides, and where every community has the opportunity to take part in shaping Africa’s digital future.
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