Development of a Language Translator Model for Yoruba Language using Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Encoder
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Date
2024
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Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Kwara State University, Malete.
Abstract
Nigeria is a nation of vast ethnic diversity, encompassing a multitude of cultures, languages, and values. These
differences often present significant communication barriers among its various ethnic groups. To bring the language barrier, Google has integrated several Nigerian languages into its translation model. This study focuses
on the development of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system for Yoruba, one of Nigeria’s indigenous
languages. Speech dataset was collected from native Yoruba speakers and subjected to extensive preprocessing eliminate background noise introduced during the recording process. The preprocessed data was then transformed
into a speech spectrogram, serving as input to a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) model. The hyperparameters of the BiLSTM model were optimised for improved performance. The translation model was evaluated using metrics such as BLEU, METEOR, and ROUGUE. Results demonstrated significant improvements
in the ASR model’s ability to accurately transcribe and translate Yoruba language speech. This advancement translation accuracy highlights the potential for better cross-linguistic communication among Nigeria’s ethnic
groups, fostering greater inclusivity and understanding. This study contributes to ongoing efforts to incorporate
underrepresented languages in global translation models, addressing the challenge of language diversity in multilingual societies.
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Jumoke Falilat AJAO, Abdulazeez Olorundare AJAO, Rafiu Mope ISIAKA, Shakirat Ronke YUSUFF, Abdullahi YAHAYA (2024). Development of a Language Translator Model for Yoruba Language using Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Encoder-KWASU Journal of Information, Communication and Technology. 3, 17-24, Published by Kwara State University, Malete. Available at https://kjict.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Development-of-a-Language-Translator-Model-for-Yoruba-Language-using-Bidirectional-Long-Short-Term-Memory-Encoder-.