DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF YORUBA LANGUAGE MOBILE TUTOR

Yoruba is a popular indigenous language in Nigeria alongside Hausa and Igbo. English language is however the main medium of communication especially in schools and institutions of learning. Over the years there has been unhealthy rivalry and competition between English language and the indigenous Nigerian languages with the latter struggling for survival. The rivalry is further worsen by the wide adoption of mobile technology which is mostly bundled with resources written in English language. Young Nigerians who have not been exposed to Yoruba language as their native language often find it difficult to speak, read, learn and write Yoruba language. There is the fear of trading Nigerian indigenous languages for English Language as the main means of communication due to modernization. The focus for this work is to present the design and implementation of an interactive mobile application with basic tutorials in the learning of Yoruba language on handheld devices. The system has features that assist users to do basic translation of English to Yoruba and fundamental tutorials that will enable people to learn, write, read and speak Yoruba language fluently. The application was designed and modelled with Unified Modelling Language and developed using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. The application runs seamlessly on handheld devices which has a deep level of penetration and adoption in Nigeria.