Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - Institute of Asian and African Studies

Resources for various languages

  • AfricanLanguages.com - Older website with information especially on South African languages and Swahili
  • African Storybook (Saide, South Africa): > 1600 storybooks in >200 African languages
  • Autshumato MT Web Service (NWU, Südafrika) - Online translation English > Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Xitsonga
  • bab.la - Various online dictionaries, e.g. on Arabic and Swahili
  • Das Wortauskunftssystem der deutschen Sprache (DWDS)
  • DeepL - Online translation for various (mainly European) languages
  • dict.cc - Online dictionary - various European languages
  • Foreign Service Institute (Washington) - Various language courses from the 1960s (pdf + mp3, e.g. Amharic, Chinyanja, Fula, Hausa, Igbo, Kirundi, Kituba, Lingala, Luganda, Moré, Shona, Swahili, Twi, Yoruba)
  • freelang.com - A lot of online dictionaries (in Frz/Eng/Spa) e.g. for Afrikaans, Arabic (standard, Egyptian, Moroccan~), Ful, Lingala, Malagasy, Wolof
  • Glosbe - Multilingual online dictionary with text examples (corpus-based), including some African languages (Afrikaans, Arabic, Koyra Senni [Songhai], Swahili, Yoruba, Zulu)
  • Google Translate (e.g. for Afrikaans, Amharic, Chichewa, Hausa, Igbo, Malagasy, Sesotho, Shona, Somali, Swahili, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu)
  • Indiana University Bloomington/Center for Language Tchnology (CeLT) - American language course materials often include audio files for many non-European languages, e.g. Afrikaans, Akan/Twi, Arabic, Bambara, Ewe, Hausa, Krio, Swahili, Wolof, Yoruba, Zulu, etc.
  • ilanguages.org - Language course material
  • Indigenous Tweets - Tweets in > 150 languages (incl. Bamanankan, Hausa, Kiswahili, Setswana)
  • Internet Archive (archive.org) - Non-profit digital library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more, also in diverse languages (search window: "Bambara", "Hausa", "Swahili" etc.)
  • italki und preply (Internet platforms for the contact to mothertongue speakers and teachers, paysites)
  • Kamusi GOLD - Multilingual online dictionary including South African languages
  • Kasahorow - Vocabulary trainer and other language facilities from Ghana for > 20 African languages
  • Language Beat - Language course material making use of a  YouTube channel
  • Larousse - Online dictionary - various European languages
  • LexTorah - Commercial online language courses especially on Nigerian languages (Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba)
  • LinguaShop - Commercial language course offers, also concerning several African languages (Afrikaans, Arabic, Hausa, Igbo, Lingala, Malagasy, Swahili, Urhobo, Wolof, Yoruba)
  • Linguee - Various online dictionaries with text examples, European Languages
  • Lyrikline.org - Poetry and translations in many world languages, including some African languages (Afrikaans, Amharic, Shona, Swahili, (Se)Tswana, Tumbuka, (Isi)Xhosa)
  • memrise - Language courses and teaching materials, e.g. for Afrikaans, Akan-Twi, Hausa, Mandinka, Somali, Swahili, Wolof or Zulu
  • Nalibali - Reading material for children in the 11 official languages of South Africa
  • Omniglot/Languages - Information and links on > 1000 languages of the world
  • Open Culture/Languages  - Free language courses for 48 languages of the world, including Bambara, Swahili and Twi (Akan)
  • Oxford Dictionaries - Various online dictionaries (in English), e.g. North-Sotho, Swahili, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu
  • PONS Online-Wörterbuch - Online dictionary - various European languages
  • Safir GmbH - Development of digital dictionaries for various non-European languages
  • sprachenlernen24.de - Commercial page with language course content
  • Stanford Libraries/Africa/Languages - Online resources on African languages
  • StoryWeaver (Pratham Books, India) - > 28000 stories in > 280 world languages (incl. 90 African languages)
  • Tatoeba - Sammlung übersetzter Beispielsätze - Free collaborative collection of translated sentences from > 300 languages, e.g. Arabic (standard, Egyptian-~), Afrikaans, Amharic, Xhosa and Kirundi
  • 101languages - Private website with language learning resources for Bambara, Hausa, Swahili, etc.