Masakhane Web: A Machine Translation Platform for African Languages

Masakhane Web: A Machine Translation Platform for African Languages | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Masakhane Web: A Machine Translation Platform for African Languages Catherine Gitau, Salomon Kabongo, Abiodun Modupe, Vukosi Marivate, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2646015/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Low-resource languages pose a particularly difficult challenge to neu-ral machine translation (NMT), and there appears to be insufficient machine translation (MT) systems to support African language accessibility. Masakhane Web, an NMT system for African languages, is proposed in this paper. Our approach is an open-source platform that is free, flexible, and produces reasonably accurate translations for African languages. The platform makes use of Masakhane community-trained MT models. It enables users to generate new data by providing feedback on translations, which is then used to retrain the models to improve them. Ultimately, our goal is to create a platform that can provide accurate translations for African languages and make the process of creating MT models easier for those who lack the technical expertise. Furthermore, we include strategies for domain experts to evaluate the system and explain how the platform can be used as a data collection source to improve MT for African languages. neural machine translation low-resource languages natural language processing Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-2646015","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":183211467,"identity":"dec13e4a-baad-4c68-a465-fd4396d3d251","order_by":0,"name":"Catherine Gitau","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"African Institute for Mathematical Sciences Ghana","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Catherine","middleName":"","lastName":"Gitau","suffix":""},{"id":183211469,"identity":"4af36fb7-8bc0-4257-a8f5-6373859ee93d","order_by":1,"name":"Salomon Kabongo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"African 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