About 2000 local languages are spoken in Africa. Senegal, Nigeria and Kenya are investing in the promotion and enhancement of vernacular languages. Such potential for information dissemination remains untapped by the scientific research community in Africa for the time being. We think that more people might be more inclined to share knowledge if they had the opportunity to do so in their mother tongues.

Summary in English and French

Please provide a brief summary in French/English along with the preprint to bridge language gaps between francophone and anglophone Africa.

The translation can be automated by using Google Translate or DeepL – in that case please add a note, such as “Auto-translated with [Google Translate / DeepL]”.

Local languages

AfricArxiv can be used for project management in a local language (with comments collected) for the manuscript to be submitted in a field specialized repository in English.

We encourage submissions in languages that are commonly used by the scientific community in the respective country, such as English, French, Swahili, Zulu, Afrikaans, Igbo, Akan, or other native African languages. Manuscripts submitted in non-English languages will be held in the moderation queue until we can get them verified. We herewith encourage you to suggest people who could assist in moderating in your language.

Translations of manuscripts

Before you start contact the authors of the original article for their prior and informed consent.

The main title should be the translated title; indicating that this is a translation of an existing manuscript (e.g. [SW > EN] followed by the translated title for translation from Swahili to English). Add the original language title as a subtitle to make the translation discoverable. A link to the original language document with a clear statement of the translation must be included on the first page.

Add additional and relevant metadata.

African languages on our website

Did you see that you can change the language of our website to Hausa, Swahili, Xhosa or Amaranth amongst other languages spoken on the continent?

The AfricArXiv website is auto-translated by GTranslate.io via a wp plugin from English into 19 languages. The translation is good but not perfect which is why…: We are looking for volunteers to help us improve the translated texts on our website. To get in involved in this community effort please email to contribute@africarxiv.org.

Currently, we provide our content in the following languages:

AfrikaansArabicAmarinthChichewaEnglish
FrenchGermanHausaHindiIgbo
MalagasyPortugueseSesothoSomaliSunda
SwahiliXhosaYorubaZulu


Guideline: github.com/AfricArxiv/…/translations.md

Translate with us

Send us an email to help translate any of the below-listed declarations and initiatives relevant for diversity and inclusion in Higher Education, research and academic publishing:

. Think Check Submit
. DORA
. Helsinki Initiative