Mark Williamson wrote:
For that matter, in the computerless world, even languages such as German and French and Spanish are relatively rare. We are talking here about targeting entire continents such as Africa which are best served by native-language content which we cannot currently provide in any way shape or form. We have growing Arabic and Afrikaans Wikipedias, a minimal Swahili Wikipedia, just beginning Wolof, Bambara, Zulu, Somali, and Amharic Wikipedias, and can already obviously provide English, French, and Portuguese-language content for those Africans who can speak these languages fluently.
I'd question that: I think Africa is "best served" by whatever content the most people can read, which is likely to be English. Even expanding to say, four languages, the best choices are likely to be English, French, Arabic, and Swahili (although I can't find very good statistics on this). Unless you have a plan to simultaneously publish editions in 500 different languages, publishing in the major languages---i.e. those that the most people are able to make use of---seems like the best plan.
-Mark