The Development of a Bilingual English-Oshikwanyama Dictionary App

A significant number of indigenous communities in Africa are struggling to maintain traditions amongst themselves and others, in a system that is dominated by a western worldview. Like the rest of Africa, Namibians are also finding it hard to preserve and use their indigenous languages in their day-to-day communication. With the decrease in use of native languages, the future generations might not have sufficient knowledge of the language and they will be unable to relate to their heritage. Hence, there is a possibility of the language becoming extinct. Dictionaries are known to improve communications for both native and non-native users of any language, and a digital mobile dictionary application is even more convenient. In this study, an Oshikwanyama-English dictionary app is developed in android studio using the Java language, and using the Incremental Iterative Delivery Programming methodology. A post-questionnaire was carried out after using the dictionary. The study found that the dictionary is easy to use, effective and can improve communication. However, a bigger dataset will have to be incorporated, before the app goes into the market.