African languages(need advice)

English translation: English, French, Afrikaans

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

English term or phrase:	African languages
Selected answer:	English, French, Afrikaans
Entered by:	Carolina Ramirez

08:42 Oct 7, 2001

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Science - Linguistics

English term or phrase: African languages(need advice)

Hello,

Please forgive my ignorance, but I have a potential job from a client who wishes to target the African market, among others. However, he is not sure which language(s) he should target.

My first guess is Afrikaans for South Africa. But I would apprciate it if you could give me some insight as to the right market/language to target to get the most response. EX. to sell videophones.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Carolina Ramirez

Carolina Ramirez KudoZ activity Questions: 353 (none open) (7 closed without grading) Answers: 141 Canada
Local time: 18:39

English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans

Explanation:
It is not completely clear if the client intends to target the African market using local languages or rather using the most common international languages of business.

In the first case the choice would involve very high costs and huge logistic problems, given the large number of languages used.

It would be also very problematic to set the terminology and even the translators for many of such languages.

It is more sensible to produce what appears to be fairly standard marketing literature in the major languages used for business, namely English and French, plus Arabic for North African countries and perhaps even Portuguese and Afrikaans.

It should be sufficient to cover most of the African market.

GM

Selected response from:

gianfranco
Brazil
Local time: 19:39

Grading comment

thank you
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

4 +3

English - without a shadow of a doubt.

Angela Arnone

English & French

Oleg Rudavin

rosettaproject.org provides the answers country by country

Sven Petersson

Also French, Portuguese

Kim Metzger

English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans

gianfranco

also: Swahili

Marta Argat

Answers

2 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +3

English - without a shadow of a doubt.

Explanation:
Angela

Angela Arnone
Local time: 00:39
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English

14 mins confidence:

English & French

Explanation:
English would do for, say, 50% of the continent with French for another 25%. You can also add a little Spanish which would not change the whole setting, though.
If your client wants to target each country in particular he'll have to deal with virtually dozens, if not hundreds, of languages, many of which are quite rare; additionally, even presumably state languages are often spoken by only a certain percentage of the population in each country.
Good luck!
Oleg

I've been there

Oleg Rudavin
Ukraine
Local time: 01:39
Native speaker of:

Russian,

Ukrainian

15 mins confidence:

Also French, Portuguese

Explanation:
These languages are spoken in many African countries, but if you had to choose only one I think English would be best.

Kim Metzger
Mexico
Local time: 16:39
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 187

37 mins confidence:

rosettaproject.org provides the answers country by country

Explanation:
rosettaproject.org provides the answers country by country.

Reference: http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live/search/browsebycount...

Sven Petersson
Sweden
Local time: 00:39
Native speaker of:

Swedish,

English

1 hr confidence:

also: Swahili

Explanation:
as an international trade language from ancient times to nowadays

Marta Argat
Local time: 01:39
Native speaker of:

Russian,

Ukrainian

1 hr confidence:

English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans

gianfranco
Brazil
Local time: 19:39
Native speaker of:

Italian
PRO pts in category: 4

Grading comment

thank you

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