TUT SWiP workshop expands African language content on Wikipedia

The recent SWiP Workshop, hosted at TUT, equipped language students with practical skills, added about 440 000 new words in African languages to Wikipedia, and strengthened digital language resources.

Prof Tebogo Rakgogo HoD: Department of Applied Languages The Department of Applied Languages partnered with the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) the Department of Science and Innovation Wikipedia the Wikimedia Foundation and the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) to present the workshop for third-year Language Practice students.

Prof Tebogo Rakgogo, HoD from the Department of Applied Languages at the Tshwane University of Technology, welcomed participants to the annual SADiLaR-Wikipedia-PanSALB (SWiP) Program Workshop at the Soshanguve South Campus Council Chambers.

The programme equipped students with practical language skills and industry insight for careers in teaching, translation, publishing, diplomacy and international business. It also strengthened collaboration between academia, industry and digital language platforms.

The 2026 workshop introduced a Train-the-Trainer component, which equips students with technical skills to facilitate similar training sessions in future. This addition strengthens students’ technical competence and facilitation skills while improving their employability, especially in projects linked to Wikipedia.

Four TUT staff members who completed a SADiLaR training programme in 2025, served as co-facilitators under the guidance of SADiLaR and Wikimedia representatives. From 2027 the approach will enable TUT to host and facilitate the workshop independently and sustain the project’s long-term impact.

In his welcome address, Prof Rakgogo quoted Prof Mashupye Maserumule, Executive Dean, Faculty of Humanities, who described the initiative as part of the University’s decoloniality agenda to advance linguistic justice.

Prof Rakgogo highlighted that TUT students contributed 140 000 new words to Wikipedia in 2024. He said the milestone reflects the students’ commitment and technical capacity to support the development of digital language resources and large language models.

He set a new target of 500 000 additional words for the current academic year. He also noted that TUT is the first university to integrate the SWiP plus Train-the-Trainer Workshop into its curriculum through the Language and Translation module, which includes practical training in translation and language editing.

Mr Dumisani Ndubane Chairperson: Wikimedia South Africa Students participated in interactive sessions, group discussions, case studies, and role-play activities that simulated translation tasks, workplace communication and cross-cultural negotiations. Translation and interpretation exercises required participants to convert texts across languages while maintaining accuracy, tone and cultural relevance.

Workshop results showed significant progress on the project dashboard. A total of 259 participants registered as new Wikipedia editors and translators. Students created 768 new articles in African languages offered by the Department of Applied Languages and improved 824 existing articles.

Participants also added about 2.2 million bytes to Wikipedia, which equals about 440 000 new words within six days. These contributions cover Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sepedi, Setswana, Tshivenḓa and Xitsonga used in the Language Practice programme.

Students will continue contributing to the project during the academic year under the guidance of Ms Xolile Ntshangase, Dr Tsebo Ramothwala, Dr Muthuhadini Muavha, Nyikelani Mabasa, Dira Thokwane and Ms Tiisetso Makhura. Two SADiLaR-funded student assistants, Emmanuel Zwane and Ms Zethu Mahlinza, also support the initiative.

Ms Jessica Mabaso, Programme Coordinator at ESCALATOR; Ms Lebohang Boemo, Project Manager at SADiLaR; Ms Nomsa Skosana, isiNdebele researcher at SADiLaR; and Dumisani Ndubane, representing the Wikimedia Foundation Board, praised the contributions of TUT students.

They said the initiative strengthens the digital presence of African indigenous languages on Wikipedia and noted that no other South African university has recorded contributions of this scale. They encouraged other institutions to follow TUT’s example in promoting the sustainability of African languages in digital spaces.

Students and workshop participants