Computers have become amazingly exact at translating spoken words to text messages and searching a large supply of valuable information for answers to difficult questions. At least, that is, so long as you speak English or other world's main languages. But try talking to your phone in Yoruba, Igbo or any number of widely spoken African languages and you'll find difficulty in accessing information, trade and other benefits of the global tech economy.

American tech giants don't have a long history of making their language technology work well outside the wealthiest markets, a problem that has also made it harder for them to discover dangerous misinformation on their platforms. Google, for instance, upset members of the Yoruba community when its language app mistranslated a nice African god as a devil. Part of the reason is that there's just not enough online data in those languages for the Al systems to effectively learn how to get better at understanding them.

“We are getting to the point where if a machine doesn't understand your language, it will be like it never existed,” said Vukosi Marivate, who has devoted some of his Al research to the southern African languages of Xitsonga and Setswana. “Considering our history, some of the bias (偏见) is intentional. The history of the African continent and in general in colonized (殖民化的) countries, is that when language had to be translated, it was translated in a very narrow way,” Marivate added.

However, Google and Microsoft are among the companies that say they are trying to improve technology for so-called "low-resource" languages that Al systems don't have enough data for. Computer scientists at Meta announced a breakthrough on the path to a "universal translator" that could translate multiple languages at once and work better with lower-resourced languages. Meanwhile, Marivate and other researchers have founded a research project across Africa. Increasingly, people are joining hands to develop a variety of language approaches.

Silbo Gomero is an ancient language of whistle that enabled people to communicate across long distances before the invention of the telephone or the computer. It’s now being revived on mountainous Canary Islands and the island of La Gomera, where the usual language is Spanish.

The Canary Islands government is providing funding to help school children on La Gomera to learn this ancient whistling language as part of their heritage. It sounds like birdsongs and was developed thousands of years ago by islanders to enable them to communicate up to two miles across La Gomera’s valleys.

In the past, Silbo Gomero has been passed down from parent to child, but the islanders felt embarrassed at this form of communication when they came into contact with the outside world and modern technology. It started to die out when the telephone arrived and the island open to tourism. However, the government realized what was happening and decided to make sure that it would not be lost. So, since 1999 Silbo Gomero has been part of the school curriculum and now about 3,000 Gomero children spend at least 25 minutes a week learning it. This is enough time for the basics to be learned.

Probably originating in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, the language was brought to the island by settlers 2,500 years ago. It was adapted to Spanish speech patterns, but uses tones rather than vowels and consonants (辅音). These are whistled at different frequencies (频率) to produce over 4,000 words, making proper conversations possible.

The importance of the language is growing. In 2003 the island held the first International Congress of Whistled Languages. Research is now being carried out in all places to which Gomerans have traditionally emigrated (移居国外) and where forms of the language survive. The Canary government’s Historical Heritage Department hopes to attract outside support so that it will continue.

For centuries, the body’s blood has been linked closely with the emotions (情绪). People who show no human emotions or feelings, are said to be “cold-blooded”. For example, the police are searching for a cold-blooded killer. He seems to kill for no reason and no emotion, as if taking someone’s life as nothing.

Cold can influence other parts of the body. However, the expression “get cold feet” has nothing to do with cold or your feet. The expression means being afraid to do something you have decided to do. For example, you agree to be president of an organization. But then you learn that all the other members have resigned (辞职), and all the work of the organization will be your responsibility. You are likely to get cold feet about being president when you understand the situation.

The expression “give someone the cold shoulder” probably comes from the physical act of turning your back toward someone, instead of speaking to him face to face. You may give a cold shoulder to a friend who has not kept a promise. Or, to someone who has lied about you to others.

“A cold fish” is not a fish. It is a person. But it is a person who is unfriendly, and shows no love or warmth. A cold fish does not offer much of himself to anyone. Someone who is a cold fish could be “cold-hearted”. Now a cold-hearted person is someone who has no sympathy. Several popular songs in recent years were about cold-hearted men or cold-hearted women who, without feelings, broke the hearts of their lovers.

“Out in the cold” means not getting something that everybody else got. A person might say that everybody except him got a pay raise (涨工资). He was left out in the cold. And it is not a pleasant place to be in.