Facebook is adding a new language to its social-networking website, Swahili. According to a BBC report a group of Swahili scholars launched the new version with the permission of the California-based internet firm, giving possible access to almost 110 million Swahili speakers in East and
The website already has 50 language versions and is looking to add more with analysts guessing that Hausa and Zulu versions possibly being next on the list to launch in West and
Symon Wanda, one of the project’s initiators, said they wanted to launch a Swahili version to safeguard the future of the language.
“The youth, the future generation, if you look at the biggest percentage of users on Facebook, they are the youth,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa program.
“They can easily navigate through when it’s maybe a language they understand, which makes it easier to use the Swahili than to use the English.”