# DataForge Africa NLP
### Algorithm-First Language Intelligence for Africa

---

## Overview

**DataForge Africa NLP** is an open, algorithm-first foundation for building **trustworthy, explainable, and inclusive language systems for African languages**.

This project exists because African languages are often:
- excluded from mainstream NLP tooling
- treated as “low-resource” by default
- forced to conform to foreign linguistic assumptions

We believe African languages deserve **engineering rigor, not approximation**.

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## Why This Project Exists

Most NLP systems are:
- model-first
- opaque
- dependent on large datasets and paid APIs

DataForge Africa NLP takes a different path:

- **Algorithm-first before AI-first**
- **Deterministic and explainable by default**
- **Inclusive of real-world typing and linguistic variation**
- **Designed for education, public services, and community use**

This makes the project suitable for:
- learners and educators
- NGOs and public institutions
- researchers and practitioners
- low-resource and low-connectivity environments

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## Core Principles

This project is guided by the  
📜 **[DataForge Africa NLP Manifesto](./MANIFESTO.md)**

Key principles include:

- African languages are first-class citizens  
- Normalize for people, not keyboards  
- Determinism before probabilistic behavior  
- Trust and safety over fluency  
- Education is a core output  

Every contribution and design decision is evaluated against these principles.

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## Project Structure

```text
dataforge_africa/
├── nlp/
│   ├── normalization.py
│   └── __init__.py
│
├── __init__.py
│
.github/
├── ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md
├── PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
│
MANIFESTO.md
CONTRIBUTING.md
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
README.md


