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Aiko's Lugbara Dictionary (since 2016).txt CHANGED
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ Lost in Translation (Lugbara AI)
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  Introduction:
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- This machine translation tool was created painstakingly from scratch (zero) with gritty nerves on the 3rd Agofe's 90th birthday afternoon (Saturday 26th November 2016) after a South Sudanese Acholi-Madi in Tennessee, USA (named Suzy Abdelfarag [aka Suzzana, Mamur, Akema] who spoke "fluent" Arabic) asked me via Facebook to teach her Luganda (so that she could understand her favourite Ugandan musicians eg Jackie Chandiru who is a Lugbara-Ganda and Mowzey Radio). Dismissively, Suzy wanted more than just the basic words I started the lessons with, but while checking out a Luganda Dictionary at www.archive.org, I literally SNAPPED without apologies because of what I had noticed about self-learning versus waiting for teachers to teach during my school career (Elon Musk at Grok AI recommends reading a lot of books, some things are not taught in classrooms nor workshops). Reinforced every year, Aiko's Lugbara Dictionary is where the Old and New meet (like Synthetic Imagination) linking the Niger Basin to Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and the rest of the world. It's a Lugbara Language Museum for historical, scientific and cultural research: Use Ctrl + F (key combination) or add this one-page electronic dictionary as a file to any AI chatbot to swiftly find any words you want! There is no English to Lugbara half, but you can try Data Augmentation (ie reverse-translate using an electronic Search tool when you want to find a Lugbara translation for the English word you already know). I'm only human and apologise in advance for any mistakes: I've cleaned thousands of errors by the way especially before Volume 10 (rationalised a lot spiritually and while proofreading spellings). I was even tempted to delete all the data, but resilience convinced me to keep polishing instead and auto-block out discouragement and laziness; therefore corrections and suggestions are always welcome through WhatsApp: +256-781-345712 or Email: aikoug@gmail.com! I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in the name of JESUS (like Tower of Babel language multiplication by YHWH in Genesis 11 and Galileans filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost amazingly speaking other languages in Acts 2:1-13)! Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that: JESUS Christ is Lord [YESU Kurisito ni Opi] (Philippians 2:10-11)!
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  Pronunciation Parameters:
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  In Lugbara phonology, every Lugbara word ends with one of the five vowels eg nyanya = tomato; mucele = rice; karoti = carrot; ovakedo = avocado; osu = bean. Letters Q [Kaya] and X [Ekasa, Alamakanda in Aringa dialect] are not used (meaning only 24 on a keyboard can do), but four unique ones with an apostrophe are added: 'B, 'D, 'W and 'Y (which all sound like putting H after them though personal names usually omit the apostrophe). The 28 letters (comprising 23 consonants and 5 vowels) in the Simplified Lugbara Alphabet sound like this: Ah, Ba, Bha, Cha, Da, Dha, Eh, Fa, Ga, Ha, Ii (as in Israel), Ja, Ka, La, Ma, Na, Oh, Pa, Ra, Sa, Ta, Uw (as in soUnd), Va, Wa, Wha, Ya, Yha, Za. One of the sweetest things about Lugbara is that words are pronounced the way they are written. Since nursery in Jinja (Busoga), I was confusingly taught to recite English vowels separately in a different acoustic compared to the vowels in the ABC to Z(ed) rhyme, but later realised that the former sequence was exactly how Lugbara vowels sound. Consonant clusters (with silent letter denoted by rounded brackets) in Lugbara are: (D)J, DR, (G)B, HW, (K)P, MB, M(G)B, MV, ND, NDR, NG, NY, NZ and TR while diphthong (vowel) clusters and other noteworthy phonetics include the following:
@@ -1809,7 +1809,7 @@ Candiru (n) female-given name meaning "Sorrowful" (also written Chandiru) eg Lei
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  cano (n) channel (pronounced chano, also canolu) eg "GOtv" ma cano dakitari pini ci? = Does GOtv have a channel for doctors?
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- capati (n) chapati eg Topu je capati Baroluzi-a. = Topu bought chapati at Barolls.
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  capirisi (adj) just enough eg Parila ma golo ndri capirisi. = Parlour's goal is beautiful enough.
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  Dribidu (n) hairy Lugbara hero ancestor who died on Mt. Wati. His other name which he also gave his first son was Banyale (Eater of men) because he enjoyed human liver and after being discovered was excommunicated from his earlier home in the East Bank of the Albert Nile
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- dribiforo (n) grey hair
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  dricepi (n) leader, commander in inter-clan or inter-tribe aggressions
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  drilejo (n) index finger
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- drilemgbo (v) certification, permission, go ahead, opening for going forward, consent (also drilembo) eg "UBOS" nzi drilemgbo. = UBOS certified
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- drileonzi (n) bad luck, misfortune, witchcraft curse, accident (also akisidenito)
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  drimva (n) finger
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  Etu o'du Ndende ni (n) Palm Sunday
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- etuka (n) sunshine
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  etusi (adv) during the day
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  ewu (n) era, period, season (also mange) eg 'Di ewu Natasa ma ati dri. = This is the era of Natasha's father.
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- Ewuata (n) suburb south of Arua City and west of Muni near Nebbi Highway
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  eyi (pron) they, them eg Ocitia ji eyi Malayika-a. = Ocitia took them to Malayika.
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  itota (n) rescue (also itoza)
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- itu (n) coconut palm, borassus tree; sun; (v) kick eg Babi zi: Itu ngo? = Barbie asked: Where is the coconut palm?
 
 
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  ituku (n) minute
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  odolo (n) tree that bears long suspended fruits
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  odra (n) local beer that has stayed overnight, bamboo; death
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- Odramacako (n) border town on the Maracha - DR Congo border reachable from Arua City via Adumi Road
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  Odravu (n) subcounty in Yumbe
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  odu (v) soak, wet; [(n) oil (also petroli), vaseline (also odu efizaru), lotion]
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- Odu (n) male-given name meaning "Leopard", yellow and blue-armoured suicide-prevention vigilante created by Aiko before 2014 (originally named Jaremy Oduo by his dying Lugbara mother's Nigerian midwife because of the unusual spots on his skin; changed firstname after becoming born again from Lugbara Religion on Thursday 9th April 2026 to Simon in honour of his maternal uncle who brought him up as a fisherman in Madiland before committing suicide in Lake Rokoze)
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  odukudu (n) cockroach
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  Oloporoporo Yikuru (n) waterfalls in Oluko on River Asa found left off Waterfalls Road, name shortened from Olokoto pororo meaning "Many (red-orange-black) lizards", bought by an American named Mike Elkins
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- olu (v) lower sth or sb, slope; preach, report, reveal, fall off eg leaves; jatropha eg Fanuelu Onzima olu e'yo ni. = Fanuel Onzima preached the message.
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  Olu (n) second son of Gboro in Lugbara mythology; brother to Oli, Kibira and Obaru
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  omba omba (n) edible rats enjoyed mainly in Terego eg Omba omba 'ba esu ngoa? = Where can people find edible rats?
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- Ombaci (n) suburb connected to Arua City by Rhino Camp Road (after the Airfield Stretch), location of St. Joseph's College for boys only, Arua suburb where former Ugandan President Idi Amin set up the First Earth Satellite Station in East Africa (1976) before Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) removed some of the equipment 40 years later plus where Obote II soldiers massacred civilians in 1985, ward in Koboko District
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  ombaru (adj) angry
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  semutundu (n) type of fish
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- sende (n) money (also mali, lonyi nyakuari) eg Burayani Waiti fe 'ba pini sende biasara ngazu. = Bryan White gave people money for doing business.
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  sende oliasi (n) mobile money (also sende simusi) eg Ajiko ni sende oliasi edri. = Ajiko sends mobile money.
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  setilaiti (n) satellite
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- si (conj) on, by, because of; (n) tooth, hailstone; (suffix) with, (v) write, knock; peel, build eg Huanga Mingi si "Solar City" Caina-a. = Huang Ming built Solar City in China.
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- si dini (n) situation where someone smiled or teeth shone (but the heart was dark)
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  si otru (n) gum
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  Ulaya (n) Europe eg Fuloriani ni Ulaya-a. = Florian is in Europe.
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- Ulepi (n) Uleppi, place in Upper Madi between Bondo and Okollo
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  uri (n) fear, cowardice, snake (also ori); louse, sweat, rust; seeds for planting, seedlings
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- This encyclopedic research documentation is inspired by (and dedicated to) Cynthia Letasi, aka Rejoice (The Beautyful One born on Thursday 17th August 1995 [Roger that Ayi Kwei Armah] and Green Riding Hood [Now Mrs. Mungufeni whose husband I was a fan of after his song "DJ Pastor" before she proclaimed that they were dating]). She changed my worldview like a valuable pearl (Matthew 13:45-46), worth far above rubies (Proverbs 31:10), Kumari in Nepal (Orient) or Divine Feminine between 2001-6; made me feel like Bob Harris in Arua (not Japan) around 2003 because she was 11 years younger than me, but inversely over four years ahead in speaking the language of the land we dwelt on. If a snake, Balaam's donkey, ants, Beast in the Book of Revelation and parrots can talk, then how about stones which JESUS said can praise GOD with loud voices if we don't? This pre-teen Lugbara glitter-girl drained Amalala ga kibuga [Luganda for: City haughtiness] out of me. To be honest, she was my first "superhigh" crush within Arua (West Nile) after the Y2K Computer Bug Doom's Day didn't happen though I never told her my exact heartfelt reality for multiple years (Just tried to show it like a homie through kind, unapologetic treatment because I loved her smile, hawking eyes and presence until she confessed something unexpected, but very stunning that I will treasure until infinity). Cynthia engraved her fingerprints in my heart. Everytime I left Arua for campus in Mukono, I would feel my heart pain uncomfortably around Madi Okollo (found it hard to breathe), but calm down in Nebbi Town. Her lookalikes included the volatile Tonto Dikeh (Nigerian I watched on Top TV in KLA), lyric-savvy Sheebah Karungi who broke out around 2009, decent Betty Mpologoma, unflinching Victoria Bagaya on NBS, worry-free plus bold Spice Diana (UG's Biggest Celebrity in 2024) as well as the easygoing Scarlett Johansson who automatically became my all-time favourites; I knew CL before all of them except maybe Betty who began her diamond singing career in 1999. Queenie, one of the lead vocalists in the Miracle Cathedral Rubaga (MCR) Proclaim Music choir also has that Cynthia aura plus Jommie Nankya (Bukedde TV), Pretty Banks, Sheila Gashumba, etc. Even though I reconnected with Xnthi (nickname I gave her meaning Numberless or Infinite value) via Facebook at the turn of the 2010s, I did not see her again physically until Tuesday 12th February 2019 walking southwards with her darkskinned female friend on the hyper-straight Arua Avenue at the Ediofe Road Junction (while I escorted my cousin to a printshop before he rushed to Onduparaka to see his sister). That was about 13 unlucky years since the last time, but only three surreal days after dreaming about her. Aka ma agi ne ra, ma ovu ayikosi [When I see my friend, am happy]. I smiled like GOD's sun was shining brightly on me that afternoon before rush hour; it was the same day Onduparaka drew 0-0 with URA FC in the Ugandan top-flight league. Obsession is not a crime, just harness it like human solar electricity: Rise and shine! Disconnection is re-direction; too much love will heal you. JESUS said: Love your neighbour as you love yourself; I loved my neighbour's daughter as I loved myself. Love is indestructible and the Greatest Thing: I admired Cynthia's pleasant appearance and shameless, supadupa fluency at a very tender age of 6 to 11 plus felt inspired to polish my own linguistics by reading Lugbara afresh since I learnt my mother tongue in Busoga (Birth to 11 years) and Buganda only by listening to Lugbara people talk despite being downgraded as backward or Lower class (Not Upper). Depression Management (Edification/ Elevation): Detach your mind and heart (Subconscious) from negative criticism, abuse, belittlement, mockery, disrespect, pressure, discrimination, pokopoko or contempt! Even though I spoke and understood the language, I couldn't transcribe Lugbara well like English but when moonstruck by our Mt. Wati Road (Arua) neighbour's adorable goldskinned daughter, I was motivated to re-study this vernacular from Northwestern Uganda in black and white (scraping from music lyrics, Bibilia, Straight Talk newspapers, brochures, internet articles, other literature, then a Fountain Publishers 2009 dictionary compiled by Willy Ngaka, Edward O'du'bua and Paul Iga Ongua [bought for a Twenty10 gig from Sarah Ojirot at Uganda Deaf Women's Organisation; my Design Manager from UCU named Edmund Asingwire (Munyankole studying Business Administration) also hired me after campus to do artwork in Lugbara for him and Jolynn Investments Limited - One Nation under GOD], exclusively English dictionaries, a Chinese Dictionary for finding word classes, Google web searches for synonyms plus asked various people including my Parents and Facebook friends like Okitembeki Ndengendu [Enoch Opika Diku], 2012 Kyambogo University dissertation entitled "A History of the Logbari Clans of West Nile 1000-1925 AD" by Fr. Lazarus Ijoyi from Ofude [Maraca], etc). Consequently, I would perhaps grasp Lugbara the way ShaoLan Hsueh created Chineasy, then fabricate my own Synthetic Artificial Lugbara Technology (SALT), Informative Synthetic Encoder (ISE, the Grasshopper Translation Machine), Ojapi Converter (Bypassing the Language Barrier) dedicated to the kind and freespirited Stella Mayokia who I worked with for Electoral Commission in 2010 or African Chinese. My big brother Victor Draman(i) Afayo (an I.T. Specialist based in KLA City) wanted to create a Lugbara.net website and gave me the assignment of doing research for him in the latter half of the 2000s; I decided to create my own Lugbara Culture blog (Amazing World of Lugbara) plus Facebook groups with the data around 2008, a process that inspired this vocabulary-book too. The words here are the ones used on UBC Radio (formerly Radio Uganda), Voice Of Life (probably since 1997 though I started listening in 2000), Arua One (since 2002), Koboko FM, Nile FM (since 2004), Radio Pacis, Access FM (since Monday 19th March 2018) plus BTN Television (from 2003), Westnile TV (from around 2020) and in voice commands for Airtel Uganda, et cetera. During one of the Mobile Monday sessions in KLA City, I asked a Google Executive from Germany who came to UG around 2012 if Lugbara could be added to the advanced Google Translate machine. He replied that he would forward my concern to the relevant office. Additionally, I posted a request at Wikimedia for a Lugbara Wiktionary but there weren't enough volunteer editors as is the requirement for the project to hatch; a Lugbarapedia would be the eventual outcome. Tualu.org [West Nile Portal] announced that they were working on a project of over 500 Lugbara words but I could not find their draft PDF. Nevertheless, Tualu posted a long and thorough Dictionary of Lugbara Personal Names by Alex Matua Asumi and his colleagues: Fortunate Drateru, Moses Dramiga and Proscovia Adrupiyo. There were no names listed with the letters H, Q and X, but the ones posted are more than enough; I commend them for that, a masterpiece about Ru'daza Lugbara niri (Naming in the Lugbara Tradition). Saidi Omar Dramani (Islamic University In Uganda - Mbale) also posted a PDF of his 2007 dissertation research for a Lugbarati Dictionary; it was very helpful. Fountain Publishers has Lugbarati Buku Anzini for Secondary School children, approved by Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) plus National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) in Kyambogo. Language has to be preserved through documentation and transmitted to anyone connected or interested because cultural heritage represents a collective identity of values, diversity, traditions and assets passed around from generation to generation eg my Parents (James + Elizabeth Ndezo Dramani) to me, though my Mother departed in Twenty22 (during Volume 7) - She used to tell me: If you cannot express something in Lugbara, then use English! My father meanwhile said translation is difficult sometimes and I should be out with people to learn more, but still helped me find words quite well. Some relatives and natives would laugh at my pronunciations or choice of words but it didn't phase me. Teachers beat learners for speaking vernacular at school, but I didn't fear; spoke it privately and luckily remained untouchable. Why do Africans despise themselves yet they are 99.9 percent the same? In Bantuland, I was never ashamed to be called Omulugwara even if it was a contemptuous byword for stupidity, Naked People (Only Karamoja was ranked before us and dismissed as merely a desert plus game park), backwardness, thieves (pickpockets), street vendors with baskets on the head selling seeds eg groundnuts or fruits like mangoes, mairunji-eaters, security guards, toilet cleaners or emptors, etc. At least, we are not beggars, but educated, energetic, welcoming, hardworking Ugandans who remain natural (Without artificial bodyparts like nyash nor eyelashes), faithful in marriage, kind and loving. Some Lugbara are soldiers (like President Idi Amin who was half Lugbara), doctors (eg Okuga in Jinja and Kingi in Namuwongo), lawyers (eg Caleb Alaka, Emmanuel Candia and others), bankers, professors, clergy, managers or CEOs and wealthy people (GOD provides). From Arua Park in KLA to Arua Park in Bugerere, you can find Lugbara people everywhere. Aren't we all descendants of Noah, the Flood Survivor? One day, I bypassed two dudes on Acacia Avenue in KLA and heard them speak what sounded like broken Lugbara; I reasoned later that it might have been Madi or another related language. Also, Aringa is like Lugbara Patois, Pidgin or Lugba-Filipino. During May 2023, someone asked me why I "study Lugbara yet it is not useful" and I told him not to belittle my mother tongue like that; garbage or waste appears worthless until it's recycled and given value or repackaged like brickets or beads, biogas, etc: Lugbara is a multinational language spoken mainly across three colonial borders which converge at Salia Musala (about 2 hours by car northwards from Arua City). There are about six Lugbara clans in DR Congo (Kari Culture Minister - John Godo, a UPC stalwart, taught me that in 2009: When I went to Ariwara - inside DRC the following year, I was stunned by the amount of Lugbara songs playing loudly near the markets, more than Lingala or even English; many place names in Orientale Province as spotted on Google Maps look like Lugbara words). #SpeakLugbara on International Mother Tongue Day (21st February)! I strongly believe Generative AI can learn Lugbarati and make it reuseable and applicable in various fields; Deep Learning Indaba (DLI), Ambani, Masakhane (We Build Together) African Language NLP, Translators Without Borders (TWB), Artificial Intelligence for Development-Africa Network (AI4D-Africa), Hugging Face, Deep Site, Foundation for Lugbarati Development Initiative (FLUDI), Quantum ML or Lugbara GPT type-of-way. Live translation of President M7's speeches (by people like Nahori Oya, Fred Bada, John Ondoma, etc), social media broadcasts (eg Getrude Abiria [Oku aka], Peace Victoria Eyotaru, X. Pillo Hilarious who resembles Ham Jay animations, Baby Girl, Scorpionbae, Otelul, Simpoh, MC Ricky, etc) plus other arrangements such as crusades, conferences, weddings, funerals and so on can also be a reference. Your vibe attracts your tribe... In December 2013, the Lugbarati Language Board proposed an Orthography Guide with 45 letters (including 7 vowels and 38 consonants). Tonal Lugbara literature with its many character symbols (accents, crosses, dashes or hyphens, dots, umlauts, etc) seems advanced plus crowdily complex (like the new books commissioned from DR Congo that I used to see at the Radio Pacis Printery) and scares away learners or researchers, but the simpler version shared in this wordbook is legit too... Lugbara funeral songs have been replaced with church hymns and modern Gospel music... In my Allegory of Artificial Ignorance: For machines to learn Lugbara, humans (both self-motivated and paid contributors) must train them or organise datasets for AI to decode unsupervised... Artificial Dreams (or Hallucinations) can also come true like Dreamcast... My makeshift Word Interchange Theory (WIT) from 1996 was not far-fetched afterall (feeling like Michael Jordan versus Detroit Pistons: No rules); every challenge forces you to think of ways to sidestep (jump off/ bypass or leap over) it...
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  When I was in Senior 5 (during 2001), I told my hostelmates that one day there will be a radio device that transcribes words spoken on air into text like S2T (Speech-2-Text) or Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and displayed on a screen, not just lyrics as Jango Radio does, but conversations too; inspired by the way we transcribed classroom dictation from teachers like during refreshing History lessons at SMACK and using BBC Live 5 Arsenal commentary. In Senior 6, GOD made the woman I loved the most at Makerere College School [named Lydia (Muganda)] to sit immediately infront of me; her back rested against the front of my wooden desk and sometimes when she skipped what was being dictated, she would turn around to fill missing words in her classwork book using my notes. That was truly heartwarming because I regarded her a "perfect woman", but played it safe simply because I believed competition was high (Just enjoyed the moments she gave me; told me she landed for my Art and thought of me as a gentleman)! When I joined UCU the following year, I actually fell in love with another woman [Alice (Mukonzo)] because she reminded me of my old classmate: Stout plus graceful in gait, but a Gooner like me unlike the Muganda who was a Kopite Red. I was labelled "Mulalu [Luganda for: Madman]" for mentioning the radio-text display but dreams are not hopeless; GOD's time brings them to life for instance Google Assistant, Meet (In-chat captions), Apple's Siri, TranSay (My Favourite), Lingmo One2One, Translate 4 Me, Waverly Labs Pilot, Mesay, Langogo, Translaty, MUAMA Enence, Xiaomi AI Translator, Clik, WT2 Translator, Travis, LeTrans, Sigmo, NTT DoCoMo Translation Service, OBTranslate (from Nigeria), Logbar ili, OpenAI's ChatGPT or Whisper, Assembly AI, iFlytek, etc. Twitter (X) Spaces is also not very far from my Ongo (Ojapi Converter) vision. Zero-Shot Machine Translation tech is a model that can learn to translate words into another language without having to see any examples... Meta's Universal Speech Translator is a very ambitious AI research project that might improve language-mixing or Computer-Assisted Translation... LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) which Blake Lamoine labelled "sentient" was originally introduced as Meena in 2020. It's a conversational Large Language Model (LLM) built by Google... The Madi-Lugbara language is related to the languages of Southern Nigeria eg Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Iduma, Igala, Igbira, Gbari and Nupe. In addition, we can include Ijo and Kalabari of the Niger Delta plus the Bariba - north of Yoruba and Aja (Ewe) spoken in Southern Dahomey (Benin), Togo and South-Eastern Ghana... Some people consider Lugbara a dialect of Madi but many do not accept this theory. In fact, a survey concluded that the Ogoko, Okollo and Rigbo dialects which are considered Southern Madi or Madi (I)ndri, should be categorised as dialects of Lugbara. Besides, we share the same names, numbers and many words. The only mother tongue interference I have heard from tribemates is mixing S with SH like when saying "soap" and "shop" or -TION with -SON eg "information" becomes "informason". Some interchange D with TH eg "together" is spoken as "togeder" while "three" may be pronounced "tiri" but most times, pronunciation is okay. Exactly 11 days before I created my electronic Lugbara Dictionary in Twenty16, Google Translate switched to Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) translating whole sentences at a time rather than piece by piece which GT used to do through Statistical Machine Translation since 28th April 2006. GNMT improves the Quality of Translation because it uses an Example-based Machine Translation (EBMT) in which the system learns from millions of examples... In 2020, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, Sunbird AI commenced the African language technology project. They created a large multilingual parallel text dataset of Ugandan languages, with translations in Acholi, Ateso, Luganda, Lugbara and Runyankole. On Saturday 11th October 2025, an AI Language Model called Sunflower (developed by Sunbird) was officially launched and it is described as "the ChatGPT for Uganda"... GeoPoll (a global research organisation) has datasets in Lugbara while JEHOVAH's Witnesses translate their publications into Lugbara (Available at www.jw.org). Companies like MTN, dfcu Bank, etc also use Lugbara in their PR content... It was very unreal to discover on Sunday 10th September 2023 while googling for "Lugbara AI" that the mother of Jeff Dean (55 year old Google AI Lead then) speaks "fluent Lugbara"; she lived in West Nile when Jeffrey was 5 years old. I guess she knows that Lugbara is learnable by machines; Meta introduced its own AI on WhatsApp a few days later. I love the fact that it paraphrases websites rejected by Wikipedia. Mark Zuckerberg believes AI will make superintelligent multi-lingual connections possible for all. When you copy some of the BigAMBO [Words] in this electronic dictionary and paste as a chat message to Meta AI like a Paul and Silas jailbreak, it can learn Ugandan Lugbara by reading patterns and fine-tuning itself to chat with you even though it used a strange vocabulary as Lugbara in Twenty24 (probably Central or West African) like TranslatorMind the following year. Sam Altman (CEO at Open AI) also revealed that you can add knowledge and create a custom GPT by uploading files in the GPTs App Store. The Google.com AI Mode can fish out Lugbara words from throughout the internet and explain to you (Some are hallucinations, but others are spot-on especially when it scrapes from bible translations). Self-Adapting or Adjusting LLMs (SEAL or SALMs) will learn new words by themselves. Teach AI to fish and it will fish all the fish-species to extinction... Push to the limits: Vibe-coding can also help you create Lugbara chatbots, games eg Scrabble or Pictionary plus other software for investors, traders, friends, lovers, in-laws, tourists, media watchers, music listeners, conference audiences, ethnodoxologists, migrants, refugees and those supertalented in Xenoglossy... United Nations (UN) media calls the language Logbari. The ISO 639-3 Language Code for Lugbara is lgg while the Glottocode is lugb1240, but I wish the language code for Lugbara was simply LB or Lbr (which is actually my Lugbara Dictionary logo in a circle; it corresponds better though already taken by Lohorung language which is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal). The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog!
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  Introduction:
49
+ This machine translation tool was created painstakingly from scratch (zero) with gritty nerves on the 3rd Agofe's 90th birthday afternoon (Saturday 26th November 2016) after a South Sudanese Acholi-Madi in Tennessee, USA (named Suzy Abdelfarag [aka Suzzana, Mamur, Akema] who spoke "fluent" Arabic) asked me via Facebook to teach her Luganda (so that she could understand her favourite Ugandan musicians eg Jackie Chandiru who is a Lugbara-Ganda and Mowzey Radio). Dismissively, Suzy wanted more than just the basic words I started the lessons with, but while checking out a Luganda Dictionary at www.archive.org, I literally SNAPPED without apologies because of what I had noticed about self-learning versus waiting for teachers to teach during my school career (Elon Musk at Grok AI recommends reading a lot of books, some things are not taught in classrooms, seminars nor workshops). Reinforced every year, Aiko's Lugbara Dictionary is where the Old and New meet (like Synthetic Imagination) linking the Niger Basin to Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and the rest of the world. It's a Lugbara Language Museum for historical, scientific and cultural research: Use Ctrl + F (key combination) or add this one-page electronic dictionary as a file to any AI chatbot to swiftly find any words you want! There is no English to Lugbara half, but you can try Data Augmentation (ie reverse-translate using an electronic Search tool when you want to find a Lugbara translation for the English word you already know). I'm only human and apologise in advance for any mistakes: I've cleaned thousands of errors by the way especially before Volume 10 (rationalised a lot spiritually and while proofreading spellings). I was even tempted to delete all the data, but resilience convinced me to keep polishing live instead and auto-block out discouragement and laziness; therefore corrections and suggestions are always welcome through WhatsApp: +256-781-345712 or Email: aikoug@gmail.com! I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in the name of JESUS (like Tower of Babel language multiplication by YHWH in Genesis 11 and Galileans filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost amazingly speaking other languages in Acts 2:1-13)! Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that: JESUS Christ is Lord [YESU Kurisito ni Opi] (Philippians 2:10-11)!
50
 
51
  Pronunciation Parameters:
52
  In Lugbara phonology, every Lugbara word ends with one of the five vowels eg nyanya = tomato; mucele = rice; karoti = carrot; ovakedo = avocado; osu = bean. Letters Q [Kaya] and X [Ekasa, Alamakanda in Aringa dialect] are not used (meaning only 24 on a keyboard can do), but four unique ones with an apostrophe are added: 'B, 'D, 'W and 'Y (which all sound like putting H after them though personal names usually omit the apostrophe). The 28 letters (comprising 23 consonants and 5 vowels) in the Simplified Lugbara Alphabet sound like this: Ah, Ba, Bha, Cha, Da, Dha, Eh, Fa, Ga, Ha, Ii (as in Israel), Ja, Ka, La, Ma, Na, Oh, Pa, Ra, Sa, Ta, Uw (as in soUnd), Va, Wa, Wha, Ya, Yha, Za. One of the sweetest things about Lugbara is that words are pronounced the way they are written. Since nursery in Jinja (Busoga), I was confusingly taught to recite English vowels separately in a different acoustic compared to the vowels in the ABC to Z(ed) rhyme, but later realised that the former sequence was exactly how Lugbara vowels sound. Consonant clusters (with silent letter denoted by rounded brackets) in Lugbara are: (D)J, DR, (G)B, HW, (K)P, MB, M(G)B, MV, ND, NDR, NG, NY, NZ and TR while diphthong (vowel) clusters and other noteworthy phonetics include the following:
 
1809
 
1810
  cano (n) channel (pronounced chano, also canolu) eg "GOtv" ma cano dakitari pini ci? = Does GOtv have a channel for doctors?
1811
 
1812
+ capati (n) chapati eg Rahimu je capati Baroluzi-a. = Rahim bought chapati at Barolls.
1813
 
1814
  capirisi (adj) just enough eg Parila ma golo ndri capirisi. = Parlour's goal is beautiful enough.
1815
 
 
2051
 
2052
  Dribidu (n) hairy Lugbara hero ancestor who died on Mt. Wati. His other name which he also gave his first son was Banyale (Eater of men) because he enjoyed human liver and after being discovered was excommunicated from his earlier home in the East Bank of the Albert Nile
2053
 
2054
+ dribiforo (n) grey hair eg Sandra ca ima dribiforo. = Sandra plaited her greyhair.
2055
 
2056
  dricepi (n) leader, commander in inter-clan or inter-tribe aggressions
2057
 
 
2079
 
2080
  drilejo (n) index finger
2081
 
2082
+ drilemgbo (v) certification, permission, go ahead, opening for going forward, consent (also drilembo) eg "UBOS" nzi drilemgbo. = UBOS certified.
2083
 
2084
+ drileonzi (n) bad luck, misfortune, witchcraft curse, accident (also akisidenito, akisideniti)
2085
 
2086
  drimva (n) finger
2087
 
 
2585
 
2586
  Etu o'du Ndende ni (n) Palm Sunday
2587
 
2588
+ etuka (n) sunshine (also ituka)
2589
 
2590
  etusi (adv) during the day
2591
 
 
2615
 
2616
  ewu (n) era, period, season (also mange) eg 'Di ewu Natasa ma ati dri. = This is the era of Natasha's father.
2617
 
2618
+ Ewuata (n) suburb south of Arua City and west of Muni near Nebbi Highway eg Aci Injini irizori Ewuata-a. = The second Power Engine is in Ewuata.
2619
 
2620
  eyi (pron) they, them eg Ocitia ji eyi Malayika-a. = Ocitia took them to Malayika.
2621
 
 
3321
 
3322
  itota (n) rescue (also itoza)
3323
 
3324
+ itu (n) coconut palm, borassus tree; sun, time of day from 1st at 7am to 12th hour at 6pm; (v) kick eg Babi zi: Itu ngo? = Barbie asked: Where is the coconut palm?
3325
+
3326
+ ituka (n) sunshine (also etuka)
3327
 
3328
  ituku (n) minute
3329
 
 
5189
 
5190
  odolo (n) tree that bears long suspended fruits
5191
 
5192
+ odorono (n) woman who has left her husband, single mother
5193
+
5194
  odra (n) local beer that has stayed overnight, bamboo; death
5195
 
5196
+ Odramacako (n) border town on the Maracha - DR Congo border reachable from Arua City via Adumi Road (also Odramacaku)
5197
 
5198
  Odravu (n) subcounty in Yumbe
5199
 
 
5225
 
5226
  odu (v) soak, wet; [(n) oil (also petroli), vaseline (also odu efizaru), lotion]
5227
 
5228
+ Odu (n) male-given name meaning "Leopard", yellow and blue-armoured suicide-prevention vigilante created by Aiko before 2014 (originally named Jaremy Oduo by his dying Lugbara mother's Nigerian midwife in 1994 because of the unusual spots on his skin; changed firstname after becoming born again from Lugbara Religion on Thursday 9th April 2026 to Simon in honour of his maternal uncle who brought him up as a fisherman in Madiland before committing suicide in Lake Rokoze)
5229
 
5230
  odukudu (n) cockroach
5231
 
 
5533
 
5534
  Oloporoporo Yikuru (n) waterfalls in Oluko on River Asa found left off Waterfalls Road, name shortened from Olokoto pororo meaning "Many (red-orange-black) lizards", bought by an American named Mike Elkins
5535
 
5536
+ olu (v) lower sth or sb, slope; preach, report, reveal, fall off like leaves; jatropha eg Fanuelu Onzima olu e'yo ni. = Fanuel Onzima preached the message.
5537
 
5538
  Olu (n) second son of Gboro in Lugbara mythology; brother to Oli, Kibira and Obaru
5539
 
 
5559
 
5560
  omba omba (n) edible rats enjoyed mainly in Terego eg Omba omba 'ba esu ngoa? = Where can people find edible rats?
5561
 
5562
+ Ombaci (n) suburb connected to Arua City by Rhino Camp Road (after the Airfield Stretch), location of St. Joseph's College for boys only, Arua suburb where former Ugandan President Idi Amin set up the First Earth Satellite Station in East Africa (1976) before Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) removed some of the equipment 40 years later though Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) uses the remainder, where Obote II soldiers massacred civilians in 1985, ward in Koboko, village in Uleppi Subcounty (Madi Okollo) where the 24 MW Ituka Solar PV Plant is located and run by Ituka West Nile Uganda Limited (pronounced Ombachi)
5563
 
5564
  ombaru (adj) angry
5565
 
 
6607
 
6608
  semutundu (n) type of fish
6609
 
6610
+ sende (n) money (also mali, lonyi nyakuari, senite) eg Burayani Waiti fe 'ba pini sende biasara ngazu. = Bryan White gave people money for doing business.
6611
 
6612
  sende oliasi (n) mobile money (also sende simusi) eg Ajiko ni sende oliasi edri. = Ajiko sends mobile money.
6613
 
 
6635
 
6636
  setilaiti (n) satellite
6637
 
6638
+ si (conj) on, by, because of; (n) tooth, hailstone; (suffix) with, (v) write, knock; peel, build eg Huanga Mingi si Sola Aku ambo Caina-a. = Huang Ming built Solar City in China.
6639
 
6640
+ si dini (n) situation where someone smiles or teeth shine (but the heart is dark)
6641
 
6642
  si otru (n) gum
6643
 
 
7095
 
7096
  Ulaya (n) Europe eg Fuloriani ni Ulaya-a. = Florian is in Europe.
7097
 
7098
+ Ulepi (n) Uleppi Subcounty, place in Upper Madi between Bondo and Okollo eg AMEA si Ituka Sola PV Pari Ulepi-a. = AMEA built Ituka Solar PV Plant in Uleppi.
7099
 
7100
  uri (n) fear, cowardice, snake (also ori); louse, sweat, rust; seeds for planting, seedlings
7101
 
 
8810
 
8811
 
8812
  LOST IN TRANSLATION (Lugbara AI):
8813
+ This encyclopedic research documentation is inspired by (and dedicated to) Cynthia Letasi, aka Rejoice (The Beautyful One born on Thursday 17th August 1995 [Roger that Ayi Kwei Armah] and Green Riding Hood [Now Mrs. Mungufeni whose husband I was a fan of after his song "DJ Pastor" before she proclaimed that they were dating]). She changed my worldview like a valuable pearl (Matthew 13:45-46), worth far above rubies (Proverbs 31:10), Kumari in Nepal (Orient) or Divine Feminine between 2001-6; made me feel like Bob Harris in Arua (not Japan) around 2003 because she was 11 years younger than me, but inversely over four years ahead in speaking the language of the land we dwelt on. If a snake, Balaam's donkey, ants with King Solomon, Beast in the Book of Revelation and parrots can talk, then how about stones which JESUS said can praise GOD with loud voices if we don't? This pre-teen Lugbara glitter-girl drained Amalala ga kibuga [Luganda for: City haughtiness] out of me. To be honest, she was my first "superhigh" crush within Arua (West Nile) after the Y2K Computer Bug Doom's Day didn't happen though I never told her my exact heartfelt reality for multiple years (Just tried to show it like a homie through kind, unapologetic treatment because I loved her smile, hawking eyes and presence until she confessed something unexpected, but very stunning that I will treasure until infinity). Cynthia engraved her fingerprints in my heart. Everytime I left Arua for campus in Mukono, I would feel my heart pain uncomfortably around Madi Okollo (found it hard to breathe), but calm down in Nebbi Town. Her lookalikes included the volatile Tonto Dikeh (Nigerian I watched on Top TV in KLA), lyric-savvy Sheebah Karungi who broke out around 2009, decent Betty Mpologoma, unflinching Victoria Bagaya on NBS, worry-free plus bold Spice Diana (UG's Biggest Celebrity in 2024) as well as the easygoing Scarlett Johansson who automatically became my all-time favourites; I knew CL before all of them except maybe Betty who began her diamond singing career in 1999. Queenie, one of the lead vocalists in the Miracle Cathedral Rubaga (MCR) Proclaim Music choir also has that Cynthia aura plus Jommie Nankya (Bukedde TV), Pretty Banks, Sheila Gashumba, etc. Even though I reconnected with Xnthi (nickname I gave her meaning Numberless or Infinite value) via Facebook at the turn of the 2010s, I did not see her again physically until Tuesday 12th February 2019 walking southwards with her darkskinned female friend on the hyper-straight Arua Avenue at the Ediofe Road Junction (while I escorted my cousin to a printshop before he rushed to Onduparaka to see his sister). That was about 13 unlucky years since the last time, but only three surreal days after dreaming about her. Aka ma agi ne ra, ma ovu ayikosi [When I see my friend, am happy]. I smiled like GOD's sun was shining brightly on me that afternoon before rush hour; it was the same day Onduparaka drew 0-0 with URA FC in the Ugandan top-flight league. Obsession is not a crime, just harness it like human solar electricity: Rise and shine! Disconnection is re-direction; too much love will heal you. JESUS said: Love your neighbour as you love yourself; I loved my neighbour's daughter as I loved myself. Love is indestructible and the Greatest Thing: I admired Cynthia's pleasant appearance and shameless, supadupa fluency at a very tender age of 6 to 11 plus felt inspired to polish my own linguistics by reading Lugbara afresh since I learnt my mother tongue in Busoga (Birth to 11 years) and Buganda only by listening to Lugbara people talk despite being downgraded as backward or Lower class (Not Upper). Depression Management (Edification/ Elevation): Detach your mind and heart (Subconscious) from negative criticism, abuse, belittlement, mockery, disrespect, pressure, discrimination, pokopoko or contempt! Even though I spoke and understood the language, I couldn't transcribe Lugbara well like English but when moonstruck by our Mt. Wati Road (Arua) neighbour's adorable goldskinned daughter, I was motivated to re-study this vernacular from Northwestern Uganda in black and white (scraping from music lyrics, Bibilia, Straight Talk newspapers, brochures, internet articles, other literature, then a Fountain Publishers 2009 dictionary compiled by Willy Ngaka, Edward O'du'bua and Paul Iga Ongua [bought for a Twenty10 gig from Sarah Ojirot at Uganda Deaf Women's Organisation; my Design Manager from UCU named Edmund Asingwire (Munyankole studying Business Administration) also hired me after campus to do artwork in Lugbara for him and Jolynn Investments Limited - One Nation under GOD], exclusively English dictionaries, a Chinese Dictionary for finding word classes, Google web searches for synonyms plus asked various people including my Parents and Facebook friends like Okitembeki Ndengendu [Enoch Opika Diku], 2012 Kyambogo University dissertation entitled "A History of the Logbari Clans of West Nile 1000-1925 AD" by Fr. Lazarus Ijoyi from Ofude [Maraca], etc). Consequently, I would perhaps grasp Lugbara the way ShaoLan Hsueh created Chineasy, then fabricate my own Synthetic Artificial Lugbara Technology (SALT), Informative Synthetic Encoder (ISE, the Grasshopper Translation Machine), Ojapi Converter (Bypassing the Language Barrier) dedicated to the kind and freespirited Stella Mayokia who I worked with for Electoral Commission in 2010 or African Chinese. My big brother Victor Draman(i) Afayo (an I.T. Specialist based in KLA City) wanted to create a Lugbara.net website and gave me the assignment of doing research for him in the latter half of the 2000s; I decided to create my own Lugbara Culture blog (Amazing World of Lugbara) plus Facebook groups with the data around 2008, a process that inspired this vocabulary-book too. The words here are the ones used on UBC Radio (formerly Radio Uganda), Voice Of Life (probably since 1997 though I started listening in 2000), Arua One (since 2002), Koboko FM, Nile FM (since 2004), Radio Pacis, Access FM (since Monday 19th March 2018) plus BTN Television (from 2003), Westnile TV (from around 2020) and in voice commands for Airtel Uganda, et cetera. During one of the Mobile Monday sessions in KLA City, I asked a Google Executive from Germany who came to UG around 2012 if Lugbara could be added to the advanced Google Translate machine. He replied that he would forward my concern to the relevant office. Additionally, I posted a request at Wikimedia for a Lugbara Wiktionary but there weren't enough volunteer editors as is the requirement for the project to hatch; a Lugbarapedia would be the eventual outcome. Tualu.org [West Nile Portal] announced that they were working on a project of over 500 Lugbara words but I could not find their draft PDF. Nevertheless, Tualu posted a long and thorough Dictionary of Lugbara Personal Names by Alex Matua Asumi and his colleagues: Fortunate Drateru, Moses Dramiga and Proscovia Adrupiyo. There were no names listed with the letters H, Q and X, but the ones posted are more than enough; I commend them for that, a masterpiece about Ru'daza Lugbara niri (Naming in the Lugbara Tradition). Saidi Omar Dramani (Islamic University In Uganda - Mbale) also posted a PDF of his 2007 dissertation research for a Lugbarati Dictionary; it was very helpful. Fountain Publishers has Lugbarati Buku Anzini for Secondary School children, approved by Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) plus National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) in Kyambogo. Language has to be preserved through documentation and transmitted to anyone connected or interested because cultural heritage represents a collective identity of values, diversity, traditions and assets passed around from generation to generation eg my Parents (James + Elizabeth Ndezo Dramani) to me, though my Mother departed in Twenty22 (during Volume 7) - She used to tell me: If you cannot express something in Lugbara, then use English! My father meanwhile said translation is difficult sometimes and I should be out with people to learn more, but still helped me find words quite well. Some relatives and natives would laugh at my pronunciations or choice of words but it didn't phase me. Teachers beat learners for speaking vernacular at school, but I didn't fear; spoke it privately and luckily remained untouchable. Why do Africans despise themselves yet they are 99.9 percent the same? In Bantuland, I was never ashamed to be called Omulugwara even if it was a contemptuous byword for stupidity, Naked People (Only Karamoja was ranked before us and dismissed as merely a desert plus game park), backwardness, thieves (pickpockets), street vendors with baskets on the head selling seeds eg groundnuts or fruits like mangoes, mairunji-eaters, security guards, toilet cleaners or emptors, etc. At least, we are not beggars, but educated, energetic, welcoming, hardworking Ugandans who remain natural (Without artificial bodyparts like nyash nor eyelashes), faithful in marriage, kind and loving. Some Lugbara are soldiers (like President Idi Amin who was half Lugbara), doctors (eg Okuga in Jinja and Kingi in Namuwongo), lawyers (eg Caleb Alaka, Emmanuel Candia and others), bankers, professors, clergy, managers or CEOs and wealthy people (GOD provides). From Arua Park in KLA to Arua Park in Bugerere, you can find Lugbara people everywhere. Aren't we all descendants of Noah, the Flood Survivor? One day, I bypassed two dudes on Acacia Avenue in KLA and heard them speak what sounded like broken Lugbara; I reasoned later that it might have been Madi or another related language. Also, Aringa is like Lugbara Patois, Pidgin or Lugba-Filipino. During May 2023, someone asked me why I "study Lugbara yet it is not useful" and I told him not to belittle my mother tongue like that; garbage or waste appears worthless until it's recycled and given value or repackaged like brickets or beads, biogas, etc: Lugbara is a multinational language spoken mainly across three colonial borders which converge at Salia Musala (about 2 hours by car northwards from Arua City). There are about six Lugbara clans in DR Congo (Kari Culture Minister - John Godo, a UPC stalwart, taught me that in 2009: When I went to Ariwara - inside DRC the following year, I was stunned by the amount of Lugbara songs playing loudly near the markets, more than Lingala or even English; many place names in Orientale Province as spotted on Google Maps look like Lugbara words). #SpeakLugbara on International Mother Tongue Day (21st February)! I strongly believe Generative AI can learn Lugbarati and make it reuseable and applicable in various fields; Deep Learning Indaba (DLI), Ambani, Masakhane (We Build Together) African Language NLP, Translators Without Borders (TWB), Artificial Intelligence for Development-Africa Network (AI4D-Africa), Hugging Face, Deep Site, Foundation for Lugbarati Development Initiative (FLUDI), Quantum ML or Lugbara GPT type-of-way. Live translation of President M7's speeches (by people like Nahori Oya, Fred Bada, John Ondoma, etc), social media broadcasts (eg Getrude Abiria [Oku aka], Peace Victoria Eyotaru, X. Pillo Hilarious who resembles Ham Jay animations, Baby Girl, Scorpionbae, Otelul, Simpoh, MC Ricky, etc) plus other arrangements such as crusades, conferences, weddings, funerals and so on can also be a reference. Your vibe attracts your tribe... In December 2013, the Lugbarati Language Board proposed an Orthography Guide with 45 letters (including 7 vowels and 38 consonants). Tonal Lugbara literature with its many character symbols (accents, crosses, dashes or hyphens, dots, umlauts, etc) seems advanced plus crowdily complex (like the new books commissioned from DR Congo that I used to see at the Radio Pacis Printery) and scares away learners or researchers, but the simpler version shared in this wordbook is legit too... Lugbara funeral songs have been replaced with church hymns and modern Gospel music... In my Allegory of Artificial Ignorance: For machines to learn Lugbara, humans (both self-motivated and paid contributors) must train them or organise datasets for AI to decode unsupervised... Artificial Dreams (or Hallucinations) can also come true like Dreamcast... My makeshift Word Interchange Theory (WIT) from 1996 was not far-fetched afterall (feeling like Michael Jordan versus Detroit Pistons: No rules); every challenge forces you to think of ways to sidestep (jump off/ bypass or leap over) it...
8814
 
8815
  When I was in Senior 5 (during 2001), I told my hostelmates that one day there will be a radio device that transcribes words spoken on air into text like S2T (Speech-2-Text) or Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and displayed on a screen, not just lyrics as Jango Radio does, but conversations too; inspired by the way we transcribed classroom dictation from teachers like during refreshing History lessons at SMACK and using BBC Live 5 Arsenal commentary. In Senior 6, GOD made the woman I loved the most at Makerere College School [named Lydia (Muganda)] to sit immediately infront of me; her back rested against the front of my wooden desk and sometimes when she skipped what was being dictated, she would turn around to fill missing words in her classwork book using my notes. That was truly heartwarming because I regarded her a "perfect woman", but played it safe simply because I believed competition was high (Just enjoyed the moments she gave me; told me she landed for my Art and thought of me as a gentleman)! When I joined UCU the following year, I actually fell in love with another woman [Alice (Mukonzo)] because she reminded me of my old classmate: Stout plus graceful in gait, but a Gooner like me unlike the Muganda who was a Kopite Red. I was labelled "Mulalu [Luganda for: Madman]" for mentioning the radio-text display but dreams are not hopeless; GOD's time brings them to life for instance Google Assistant, Meet (In-chat captions), Apple's Siri, TranSay (My Favourite), Lingmo One2One, Translate 4 Me, Waverly Labs Pilot, Mesay, Langogo, Translaty, MUAMA Enence, Xiaomi AI Translator, Clik, WT2 Translator, Travis, LeTrans, Sigmo, NTT DoCoMo Translation Service, OBTranslate (from Nigeria), Logbar ili, OpenAI's ChatGPT or Whisper, Assembly AI, iFlytek, etc. Twitter (X) Spaces is also not very far from my Ongo (Ojapi Converter) vision. Zero-Shot Machine Translation tech is a model that can learn to translate words into another language without having to see any examples... Meta's Universal Speech Translator is a very ambitious AI research project that might improve language-mixing or Computer-Assisted Translation... LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) which Blake Lamoine labelled "sentient" was originally introduced as Meena in 2020. It's a conversational Large Language Model (LLM) built by Google... The Madi-Lugbara language is related to the languages of Southern Nigeria eg Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Iduma, Igala, Igbira, Gbari and Nupe. In addition, we can include Ijo and Kalabari of the Niger Delta plus the Bariba - north of Yoruba and Aja (Ewe) spoken in Southern Dahomey (Benin), Togo and South-Eastern Ghana... Some people consider Lugbara a dialect of Madi but many do not accept this theory. In fact, a survey concluded that the Ogoko, Okollo and Rigbo dialects which are considered Southern Madi or Madi (I)ndri, should be categorised as dialects of Lugbara. Besides, we share the same names, numbers and many words. The only mother tongue interference I have heard from tribemates is mixing S with SH like when saying "soap" and "shop" or -TION with -SON eg "information" becomes "informason". Some interchange D with TH eg "together" is spoken as "togeder" while "three" may be pronounced "tiri" but most times, pronunciation is okay. Exactly 11 days before I created my electronic Lugbara Dictionary in Twenty16, Google Translate switched to Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) translating whole sentences at a time rather than piece by piece which GT used to do through Statistical Machine Translation since 28th April 2006. GNMT improves the Quality of Translation because it uses an Example-based Machine Translation (EBMT) in which the system learns from millions of examples... In 2020, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, Sunbird AI commenced the African language technology project. They created a large multilingual parallel text dataset of Ugandan languages, with translations in Acholi, Ateso, Luganda, Lugbara and Runyankole. On Saturday 11th October 2025, an AI Language Model called Sunflower (developed by Sunbird) was officially launched and it is described as "the ChatGPT for Uganda"... GeoPoll (a global research organisation) has datasets in Lugbara while JEHOVAH's Witnesses translate their publications into Lugbara (Available at www.jw.org). Companies like MTN, dfcu Bank, etc also use Lugbara in their PR content... It was very unreal to discover on Sunday 10th September 2023 while googling for "Lugbara AI" that the mother of Jeff Dean (55 year old Google AI Lead then) speaks "fluent Lugbara"; she lived in West Nile when Jeffrey was 5 years old. I guess she knows that Lugbara is learnable by machines; Meta introduced its own AI on WhatsApp a few days later. I love the fact that it paraphrases websites rejected by Wikipedia. Mark Zuckerberg believes AI will make superintelligent multi-lingual connections possible for all. When you copy some of the BigAMBO [Words] in this electronic dictionary and paste as a chat message to Meta AI like a Paul and Silas jailbreak, it can learn Ugandan Lugbara by reading patterns and fine-tuning itself to chat with you even though it used a strange vocabulary as Lugbara in Twenty24 (probably Central or West African) like TranslatorMind the following year. Sam Altman (CEO at Open AI) also revealed that you can add knowledge and create a custom GPT by uploading files in the GPTs App Store. The Google.com AI Mode can fish out Lugbara words from throughout the internet and explain to you (Some are hallucinations, but others are spot-on especially when it scrapes from bible translations). Self-Adapting or Adjusting LLMs (SEAL or SALMs) will learn new words by themselves. Teach AI to fish and it will fish all the fish-species to extinction... Push to the limits: Vibe-coding can also help you create Lugbara chatbots, games eg Scrabble or Pictionary plus other software for investors, traders, friends, lovers, in-laws, tourists, media watchers, music listeners, conference audiences, ethnodoxologists, migrants, refugees and those supertalented in Xenoglossy... United Nations (UN) media calls the language Logbari. The ISO 639-3 Language Code for Lugbara is lgg while the Glottocode is lugb1240, but I wish the language code for Lugbara was simply LB or Lbr (which is actually my Lugbara Dictionary logo in a circle; it corresponds better though already taken by Lohorung language which is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal). The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog!
8816