International Journal of Advances in Applied Sciences (IJAAS)

Vol. 10, No. 2, June 2021, pp. 171~177

ISSN: 2252-8814, DOI: 10.11591/ijaas.v10.i2.pp171-177  171

Design and implementation of an African native language-based

programming language

Ezekiel K. Olatunji1, John. B. Oladosu2, Odetunji A. Odejobi3, Stephen O. Olabiyisi4

1Departmentof Computer Science, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria
2,4Departmentof Computer Science and Engineering, Ogbomoso, Nigeria
3Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, Nigeria

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: Most of the existing high level programming languages have hitherto
borrowed their lexical items from human languages including European and
Received Sep 10, 2020 Asian languages. However, there is paucity of research information on
Revised Jan 29, 2021 programming languages developed with the lexicons of an African
Accepted Feb 22, 2021 indigenous language. This research explored the design and implementation
of an African indigenous language-based programming language using
Yoruba as case study. Yoruba is the first language of over 30 million people
Keywords: in the south-west of Nigeria, Africa; and is spoken by over one hundred
million people world-wide. It is hoped, as established by research studies,
BNF that making computer programming possible in one’s mother tongue will
Lexicons enhance computer-based problem-solving processes by indigenous learners
Parser and teachers. The alphabets and reserved words of the programming
Programming languages language were respectively formed from the basic Yoruba alphabets and
Yoruba language standard Yoruba words. The lexical items and syntactic structures of the
programming language were designed with appropriate regular expressions
and context-free grammars, using Backus-Naur Form (BNF) notations. A
prototype implementation of the programming language was carried out as a
source-to-source, 5-pass compiler. QBasic within QB64 IDE was the
implementation language. The results from implementation showed
functional correctness and effectiveness of the developed programming
language. Thus lexical items of a programming language need not be
borrowed exclusively from European and Asian languages, they can and
should be borrowed from most African native languages. Furthermore, the
developed native language programming language can be used to introduce
computer programming to indigenous pupils of primary and junior secondary
schools.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license.

Corresponding Author:
Ezekiel K. Olatunji
Department of Computer Science
Bowen University, Iwo
Osun State, Nigeria
Email: [email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION
Programming languages (PLs) can be described as notational systems for communication of
algorithms and data structures to computers and people. A number of factors have influenced the evolution
and development of PLs. These include but not limited to discovery of weaknesses and/or deficiencies in the
existing PLs; development in computer hardware; requirements of new areas of application; changing

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172  ISSN: 2252-8814

understanding of better methods of writing and maintaining large and complex programs; understanding of
strength and weakness of some language features and the need for standardization [1], [2]. Many popular
high-level languages (HLL) (such as COBOL, Pascal, Visual Basic, C++, Java and others) have been
developed from the lexicons of English language while others (such as Rapira [3] and Ezhil [4] have been
developed from the lexicons of Asian languages. However, there is scarcity of research information on
serious efforts at designing and implementing PLs based on the lexicons of African indigenous languages,
such as Yoruba language. According to [5], development of such PLs will improve computer-based problem-
solving processes by indigenous teachers and learners. This fact has also been corroborated by research
studies [6]-[9]. This research explored the design and implementation of an African native language-based
programming language (NLPL) using Yoruba as case study. Yoruba is the first language of over 30 million
people in the south-west of Nigeria, Africa; and is spoken by over one hundred million people world-wide
[10].
Aside improving computer-based problem solving processes by indigenous teachers and learners,
availability of NLPL will enable many millions in Africa who are only literate in their mother tongue to learn
how to program the computer in their mother tongue. Over 13 million of this category of people are in
Nigeria alone [2]. In addition, development and adoption of NLPL will increase the functional load of their
base languages; this will consequently reduce the chances of such languages going into extinction as
predicted and feared in many circles [11]-[13]. Interestingly, in a related work, in a bid to ascertain the
relevance and needfulness of NLPL, Olatunji et al [14] carried out a needs assessment survey for a NLPL
through design and administration of structured questionnaire. It was reported that eighty-nine percent (89%)
of the respondents to the questionnaire expressed eagerness and willingness to program or learn
programming in a NLPL, if one exists. The outcome of the study further gave impetus to embarking on this
research.

2. RELATED WORKS
The dearth of literatures on African native language programming languages has earlier on been
stated. The few available non-English-based PLs were developed primarily for pedagogical reasons; which is
also the primary motivation for embarking on this research. Rapira [3] is an educational procedural
programming language developed in the USSR and implemented on Agat computer, PDP-11 clones
(Electronika, DVK, BK series) and Intel-8080/Z80 clones. It was developed by Andrev Petrovych Ershov, a
Soviet Computer Scientist and notable pioneer in systems programming and programming language research
[15]. Rapira was an interpreted language with dynamic type system and high level constructions. The
language originally had a Russian-based set of keywords [3], but English and Moldovan were added later.
Rapira was used in teaching computer programming in Soviet schools.
Ezhil is an interpreted Tamil-based programming language developed by [16]. Tamil is an Indian
language spoken by over 60 million people [17]. The programming language is targeted towards the K-12
(Junior high school) level Tamil speaking students as an early introduction to thinking like a computer
scientist [4]. The syntax of Ezhil is broadly similar to that of conventional BASIC. According to the author of
Ezhil, the primary motivation for developing the language is that “like mathematics, computing is a concept
and can be introduced through any native language”. Thus by introducing computing in the native language
children can easily learn how to think in the required “logical modes (enumeration, recursion, procedural)”
[16]. The syntax of our programming language is similar to structured BASIC, and only Yoruba keywords
are allowed.
Qalb, developed by [18], is a functional PL based on the Arabic language. This programming
language enables one to write computer programs completely in the Arabic language. One of the motives for
developing the programming language is to challenge the culture in which the design of most modern popular
programming languages is predominantly based on the English language words. Such a culture, as noted by
[19], makes learning programming especially difficult for students whose native language does not even use
the Latin alphabets as does English language and for which English-based programming language keywords
are little more than abstract symbols. Qalb is a programming language that deviates almost entirely from the
use of ASCII character set for its encoding [18]. While Qalb’s syntax is similar to that of Lisp and Scheme,
the syntax of our programming language is similar to that of structured BASIC. Furthermore, unlike Qalb,
our PL made use of a mixture of ASCII and Unicode characters.
The Hindawi programming system (HPS) was described by [20] as a suite that allows users to
program in Indic languages (Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Assamese and some other Indic languages). The HPS,
developed by Chaubary A and Chaudbary S., is a free, open-source, completely non-English-based
programming platform that allows non-English medium literates of India to learn and write computer
programs [21]. The HPS removes the English language barrier and enables non-English literates Indians to

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take up computer science and participates in the information and communications technology (ICT) at all
levels of technology from primary school education to robotics and super-computing in their mother tongue.
While their work provided a programming platform for many Indic languages, our just one African language
the Yoruba language. However, the planned implementation approach for our work is similar to that of [21].
The development of a programming language called “Dolittle” was described by [22]. Its keywords
are based on Japanese language. Dolitlle was developed in 2000 [23] in response to the need for an object-
oriented programming language that is suitable for children in both elementary and secondary schools in
Japan. It was designed to be an object-oriented educational programming language. The programming
language was written in Java and does not require elaborate declarations. Unlike the work of [22], the
keywords and identifiers in this research are based on Yoruba language. Furthermore, structured
programming is the focus of our designed language.

3. METHODOLOGY
This research derives its theoretical underpinning from the theories of formal grammars, languages
and automata. The detail design of a subset of the programming language with lexicons of Yoruba language
has been carried out [5]. This was accomplished by forming the character set and reserved words of the PL
from the basic Yoruba alphabets and standard Yoruba words respectively. Necessary regular expressions and
regular grammar were also defined to specify the lexical structure of the language. Yoruba words (such as
Sesiro, Gbawole and others) that will not lead to ambiguity are used for the design of the lexical items of the
programming language in order to simplify its implementation. Furthermore, appropriate context-free
grammars were defined, using Backus-Naur Form (BNF) notations and its extended version, to specify the
syntactic structure of a valid program and program elements (statements, variables, expressions and so on) in
the language.
A prototype implementation of the Yoruba-based PL has been carried out. Only limited constructs,
including input and output (I/O) and arithmetic statements, were implemented. The Yoruba-based PL was
implemented as a source – to- source compiler that produces another high – level language, QBASIC
language, as output because a compiler already exists for QBASIC. This approach has been used for a
number of programming languages, such as Java, Python, and others [24]. The programming language was
implemented in four phases, viz: lexical analysis, syntax analysis, semantic analysis and code generation.
Recursive descent parsing algorithm was employed in implementing the syntax analysis phase. Rather than
generate machine language codes, the code generation phase generated QBASIC code for constructs of the
language that are syntactically and semantically valid.
Furthermore, the language was implemented as a 5-pass compiler. Each phase of the
implementation formed a pass with the exception of the parser that is made up of two passes. All the
components of the system were coded and test-run on the QBasic integrated development environment (IDE)
using QB64 as the implementation language. QB64 is a BASIC compatible editor and C++ compiler that
creates working executable files from QBasic BAS files that can be run on 32 or 64 bits PC Windows (XP,
Vista and newer), Linux or Mac.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The output of the design of a subset of the Yoruba-based PL is the syntactic definition of the PL
which has been reported in [5]. Furthermore, detail sample output generated by the scanner for some given
source programs in the PL has been reported in [2] and [5]. Figure 1 is a syntax error-free source program
used to test the parser component of the compiler. Figure 2 and Figure 3 are the outputs generated by the
parser at the end of syntax analysis of the source program. They provide information for the programmer as
to the syntactic correctness or otherwise of each source statements in the source program. Figure 2 is a run-
time display of the parser that gave a summary information on whether or not the source program contains
syntax error, while Figure 3 provides detail status of each statements in the source program. It also provides
insight into the possible causes of mistakes for statements that are in error. Examination of these outputs
(Figure 2 and Figure 3) and comparing them with the input (Figure 1) show that the parser is working
correctly
A source program (like Figure 1) that has been parsed to be syntax error-free by the parser would be
subjected to semantic checks. Though Figure 1 has no syntax error, it however, contains some semantic
errors by the definition of the programming language. This is indicated in Figure 4. These errors are type
incompatibility in line 4 of Figure 1 and undeclared identifier ‘Kola’ in lines 5 and 6 of the source program.
By the definition of the developed Yoruba-based PL, both the parser and semantic checker are functioning
correctly. Figure 5 is another source program that has been compiled to be free of all compilation errors

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(lexical syntax and semantics). Object code is only generated for a compilation error-free source program.
The ‘object’ code generated in QBASIC for the source program is shown in Figure 6. QBASIC code is the
‘object’ code produced because the compiler was developed as a source-to-source compiler. When Figure 6
was opened within the QBASIC 64 IDE, it was discovered to be compilation error-free also. This also
establishes the functioning correctness of the code generator.

Figure 1. Yoruba source program parser Figure 2. Run-time display of the parser

Figure 3. Output of the parser for the source Figure 4. Output of the semantic checker for the
program in Figure 1 programmer (using Figure 1 as input)

Figure 5. Sample Yoruba-based source program to do arithmetic

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Int J Adv Appl Sci ISSN: 2252-8814  175

When Figure 6 was then run with 12 and 23 as input data, Figure 7 was produced as the run-time
output. Examination of the source program of Figure 5 and the input supplied shows that the output produced
(Figure 7) is correct because 12 plus 23 equals 35 and 12 multiplied by 23 equals 276.

Figure 6. Code generated for the Yoruba source program of Figure 5

Figure 7. Run-time output of the source program of Figure

5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

Development of a programming language based on the lexicons of an African language, like
Yoruba, is very much desirable and relevant, especially in Nigeria. This is attested to by the outcome of the
needs survey carried out in which eighty-nine (89%) percent of respondents to the questionnaire used for
needs assessment indicated their willingness to program or learn programming in their mother tongue, if one
exists [14]. The successful development of the Yoruba-based programming language shows that lexical items
of programming languages need not be borrowed exclusively from European and Asian languages, but can
also be borrowed from most African indigenous languages. The people who are only literate in their mother

Design and implementation of an African native language-based … (Ezekiel K. Olatunji)

176  ISSN: 2252-8814

tongues, like Yoruba, can now be taught the art of computer programming in their native languages. In
particular, computer programming, using the developed programming language, can now be introduced to
primary and junior secondary school pupils instead of or in addition to using BASIC or LOGO language as is
the current practice in Nigeria. For future research work, the current orthography of Yoruba language would
be considered for developing a Yoruba-based PL. In this regard, some special Yoruba alphabets such as á è,
é, í, ó, ù, ę, ǫ and others would be included for implementation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to their families for their support and encouragement. The editors and reviewers are
also gratefully acknowledged.

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BIOGRAPHIES OF AUTHORS

Ezekiel K. Olatunji is the corresponding author of the article. He holds a Ph.D degree in
Computer Science. He is presently a lecturer in the department of Computer Science, Bowen
University, Iwo, Osun state, Nigeria.

J. B. Oladosu is an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering in the department of Computer

Science and Engineering, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Osun State,
Nigeria.

O. A. Odejobi is a full Professor of Computer Science in the department of Computer Science

and Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, Osun State, Nigeria

S. O. Olabiyisi is a full Professor of Computer Science in the department of Computer Science

and Engineering Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Osun State, Nigeria

Design and implementation of an African native language-based … (Ezekiel K. Olatunji)