GHANAIAN LANGUAGE INTEGRATION ON ANDROID SMARTPHONES

Abstract The main aim of this project is to integrate local languages spoken and written in Ghana into the input method services of smartphones. The high penetration of mobile devices in and across Africa continues to be an interesting phenomenon and this does not exclude smartphones. Since the introduction of smartphones, their production and customization has been skewed towards users and consumers in the West. Therefore the localization of the features of smartphones for the African environment has been very slowed if not stopped. The major result of this is that text based mobile messaging is limited to characters of only the dominant languages of the world such as English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. This leaves consumers especially in Ghana to resort to replacing the special characters of their local language with either numbers of symbols or totally ignore their use. This might conflict with the correct use of the local language in context. The goal of this project is to right this by implementing an input method service also known as a soft keyboard (SoftKeyboard) for the android smartphone platform which would represent the special characters in local languages spoken in Ghana. The end result should be a user-friendly and intuitive and interactive keyboard that satisfies Akan, which is a major spoken language across Ghana and other select languages in the country.