Photo of Musah Fuseini, provided by Musah Fuseini, used with permission.
This series will highlight the personal journeys of language activists who are also Wikimedians, exploring how they are preserving, promoting, and revitalizing their languages through Wikimedia projects, using digital tools to support their broader goals. In this article, Subhashish Panigrahi interviews Ghanaian educator Musah Fuseini who contributes to the Dagbani-language Wikipedia.Dagbani is spoken by over a million speakers in Ghana and Northern Togo. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Rising Voices (RV): Please tell us about yourself.
Musah Fuseini (MF): My name is Musah Fuseini, aDagbani-language teacher, a Wikimedian,Open Educational Resources (OER) enthusiast, and an indigenous language activist. For 17 years, I have been teaching in the Ghanaian education system. Apart from teaching Dagbani, I also double asthe assistant headteacher in my school. I use theDagbani Wikipedia for searching reference materials while preparing for my Dagbani lessons. I also guide my students to Wikipedia to access resources while doing their assignments.
RV: What is the current status of your language on the internet and offline?
MF: The Dagbani language currently does not have much presence on the internet. Only a few sites such as the Dagbani Wikipedia have content in the language. We also do not see much viewership as the majority of the Dagbani speakers lack literacy skills in Dagbani. There are fewer sites publishing Dagbani content while many have gone extinct. I consider Dagbani Wikipedia to be the most active dedicated site for content in our language. All of us, volunteer editors, edit Dagbani Wikipedia. The challenge is however the lack of viewership as the majority of the Dagbani speakers lack literacy skills in the language. This issue motivated me to enroll in theOpen Education for a Better World (OE4BW) program to create OER and help others read and write in Dagbani.
RV: What motivates you personally to engage in digital activism for your language?
MF: I take pride in having the opportunity to contribute to digital platforms like Wikipedia to promote and preserve my language online for future generations. As a teacher of Dagbani language, I observed that there weren’t enough teaching and learning resources online for other Dagbani educators as well as students. So, when I got introduced to Wikipedia, I realized I could leverage it to bridge this resource gap.
I got to know about Dagbani Wikipedia throughSadik Shahadu, the current executive director of theDagbani Wikimedians User Group. He then shared on Facebook about looking for volunteer editors for Dagbani Wikipedia. I contacted him, expressing my interest and he recruited me and my colleagues subsequently through a series of training sessions. Our first project was to translate some messages onTranslatewiki.Net. We were trained on how to edit Wikipedia and create more articles on the Dagbani Wikipedia, then under incubation. This we did within a record time, thus propelling us to transition into a live and complete Wikipedia from the Incubator. So I’m privileged to be one of the founding members of the User Group who also contributed content to the Dagbani Wikipedia Incubator, helping it graduate to a live Wikipedia. I am proud to be the editor in our User Group to reach 1,000 edit counts on Wikipedia.
RV: Can you describe your online language activism in more detail, including how Wikimedia projects contribute to your efforts?
MF: Apart from contributing to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in Dagbani, which I really enjoy, I also write in, and about my language on social media. I’m hoping to publish a news website completely in Dagbani so there will be more content in Dagbani online. Since 2022, I have participated in three successive cohorts of theOpen Education for a Better World (OE4BW) program, where I developed Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Dagbani. I also have served as a project lead of theKusaal Wikimedia Community, offering technical support in making theKusaal-language Wikipedia live. Kusaal is mutually intelligible with Dagbani and a part of theGur/Mabia language group spoken by 121,000 speakers mainly in northern Ghana.