How Can Endogenous African Languages Keep up with 21st Century Developments in the Knowledge Industry and Translation Technology? by Charles Tiayon

This morning, two seemingly unrelated posts struck my attention.

The first, titled "Global Machine Translation Market Is Expected To Reach USD 983.3 Million By 2022" (http://www.free-press-release-center.info/pr00000000000000310793_global-machine-translation-market-is-expected-to-reach-usd-9833-million-by-2022-radiant-insights-inc.html), had this to say:

"The global Machine Translation Market is expected to reach USD 983.3 million by 2022. Technological advancements have led to the development of sophisticated translation technology with minimal errors and grammatical coherence, which has considerably widened the scope for machine translation. The ability to rapidly, seamlessly and cost-effectively translate documents and content in regional languages has spurred the machine translation market over the past few years.
The provision of machine translation Software-as-a-Service (MTSaaS) over secure cloud offerings hosted in data centers is expected to offer substantial growth opportunity for the market. Increasing prominence of cloud computing has resulted in growing demand for cloud-based translation tools, which is further expected to boost the machine translation market. Constant R&D and technological advancements have enabled the technology to seamlessly integrate into a range of products from enterprise-level systems to consumer devices. Upgrading of communication networks and the rising proliferation of smartphones has led to the introduction of machine translation apps that provide instant translation of multilingual text." 

The second, titled "With No New Knowledge in African Languages, They Die" (http://allafrica.com/stories/201508101349.html), argued as follows: 

"UP to now, it has been assumed that the number of people who speak a language guarantees its survival. This means that the more people speak a language, the greater its chance of surviving into the future.
This might be so, from the record of our history until now. In fact, what keeps a language alive is the amount of new knowledge it is able to generate, domesticate and masticate.Classical Latin is not in use today because the work of knowledge is being done in other languages. Classical Arabic continues to be used today because, first it made itself the medium of European Renaissance in the 16th century.Second, it is the language of Islam and if the Prophet and his companions were to come back today, the Quran would speak to them in the language in which it was revealed so many centuries ago.And third, Classical Arabic is the language of Education in the Arab world from kindergarten to university. In the last 50 years, areas of human knowledge have advanced so fast and so furious that these have left some languages behind. Japanese and Chinese refused to be left behind.Wherever their students went to study in the western world /Eastern Europe, they translated something of their new knowledge into Japanese and Chinese.
In the last 50 years, areas of human knowledge have advanced so fast and so furious that these have left some languages behind. Japanese and Chinese refused to be left behind. Wherever their students went to study in the western world /Eastern Europe, they translated something of their new knowledge into Japanese and Chinese. Under the philosophical guidance of using foreign knowledge to their native savvy, they have been able to keep up their side of adding to the new knowledge.Under the philosophical guidance of using foreign knowledge to their native savvy, they have been able to keep up their side of adding to the new knowledge. But if you do not join in these knowledges you cannot contribute to it.Nuclear Physics, ICT, Robotics, Genetics, DNA, Space Technology and Space Exploration and Nanotechnology, which of these can we seriously speak about and pontificate upon in our African Languages? Even the multiple media of everyday are not only absorbed into our systems, they are absorbed in the gibberish of illiterate users of English.Years ago, when the internet began, it was almost hundred per cent in the English language. Today, this is no longer so. This means that African Languages that mean knowledge business can catch up in the knowledge industry."

My questions to African translators: Will Africa get a fair share of the machine translation market by 2022? How?  What will be the actual place translation into/from African languages? What will be your personal contribution?