Wikipedia:No Automatic Translation

No Automatic Translation is an essay written to guide editors in writing articles correctly on Yoruba Wikipedia. Sometimes when editors translate contents and import them to Yoruba Wikipedia, they hardly do further research to confirm weather the contents were correctly translated. They often ignore the Yoruba language diacritical marks which is an integral part of the language. This is common among non-native speaker of Yoruba language. This essay is written in English language to help non-native speaker of Yoruba language in understanding the critical points.

Unlike English Language, Yoruba is a tonal language. The tone is an integral part of the language. In writing, the correct syntax must be followed otherwise the entire text becomes meaningless to the reader. The appropriate intonation marks must be placed on each of the letter or alphabet to write any meaningful words or construct any meaningful sentence. Beginners and some non-native speakers of the language usually find the use of the intonation marks confusing.

The three most useful diacritical marks in yoruba language are the dò - re - mí. DÒ (high pitch tone), RE (medium pitch tone) MÍ (low pitch tone). Yoruba vowels includes À à Á á È è É é Ẹ ẹ Ẹ̀ ẹ̀ Ẹ́ ẹ́ Í í Ì ì Ó ó Ò ò Ọ ọ Ọ̀ ọ̀ Ọ́ ọ́ Ú ú Ù ù.

For example, YORUBA has three syllables; YO-RU-BA. By inserting the diacritical marks, it becomes YO-RÙ-BÁ. If written like this, YORUBA then it's meaningless to the reader.

For example, In Yoruba language, Igba means 200 in English, ìgbá means Garden egg in English, ìgbà means Time in English and Igbá means Calabash in English. If an editor is writing about "Time" and writes Igba, this is misleading because Igba means 200. If such written styles continues, that is, if the editor continues to ignore the diacritical marks, the entire article will make little or no sense and such contributions is net negative.

Wikipedia is writing collaboratively by volunteers and a work in progress. Sometimes it might be a good idea for non-native speaker to contact one or more experienced editors who are native speakers of the language to help with copy editing to ensure that the diacritcal marks are used correctly.

Content translation tools

Currently, there is no content translation tool that will effectively translate contents from English or other languages to Yoruba language. The Content translation tool designed by the Wikimedia Foundation does not translate contents automatically from other languages to Yoruba languages. Although, there are tools that are useful but not effective. This tool may be helpful but not reliable. This dictionary is also useful but unreliable as well.