A team that markets Kenya abroad has hailed Twitter for finally recognizing Swahili as a language. Previously, Twitter had been incorrectly identifying the language mostly spoken in East Africa as Indonesian. The US-based technology company has now incorporated a function that detects Swahili words in tweets and translate them.
In a tweet on Thursday, Brand Kenya, a team that markets Kenya overseas and which has been pushing the social networking site to recognize Swahili, said it had won the battle.
“We made noise, a lot of noise; regarding #SwahiliIsNotIndonesian and #TwitterRecognizeSwahili. We take this earliest opportunity to say thank you to Twitter for listening. Thank you for recognizing Swahili,” Brand Kenya tweeted on Thursday.
Brand Kenya further uploaded a video of translations that the online site was making from Swahili tweets, most of which were correct.
In April, Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) launched a campaign under hash tag #SwahiliIsNotIndonesian and #TwitterRecognizeSwahili to pressure Twitter to recognize Swahili. Campaigners argued that the language is spoken by millions of people in East Africa and beyond and therefore deserves to be recognized.
“Kiswahili is not Indonesian. It is a language proudly spoken in East and Central Africa! Sawa!” tweeted Ron.
“Kiswahili is not and can never be Indonesian, Kiswahili is our National language that units us,” tweeted Bessy.
