While English is spoken in many developing countries, it is typically a second or third language, used for conducting business. The vast majority of the populations of developing countries do not speak English. Even native language use poses a challenge in countries that have many local or ethnic dialects. Effective e-Government strategies should emphasize content in the national language or languages and should also provide for translation into various ethnic dialects. Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious project of localizing languages for their applications in several developing countries including Kenya and Tanzania where Microsoft applications are now available in Swahili. This has made it possible for content developers, especially those in universities, to begin converting content into Swahili and making it available on websites. Though there are forty-two dialects in Kenya, Swahili is spoken throughout the country, and Swahili is much easier to translate into local dialects.
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