Akitiyan láti mú Twitter fi Yoruba kún ikan lára àwọn èdè tí oun èlò náà ti le di mímúlò. E darapò mó wa ni twitter pèlú #twitterYoruba, kí ẹ sì fi tweet náà ránsẹ sí @translator àti @twitter.

Twitter’s global platform is already available in over two dozen languages: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, Filipino, Finnish,French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese,Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, and Urdu.

Here’s a twitter bomb to bring Yoruba to the attention of the techies at that social media platform. Beside having over 30 million speakers all around the world and producing a Nobel Laureate in Literature, the language and culture has also produced a host of language professionals and cultural representatives in the world today to whom translating the program into Yoruba at their free time would be a delight. Here’s putting ourselves forward.

We are declaring tomorrow March 1, 2012 Tweet Yoruba Day. To participate, tweet in Yoruba as much as you can, and use the hashtags #twitterYoruba or #tweetYoruba. Tweet at @translator and @twitter (preferably to both of them) with the hashtag #twitterYoruba and #tweetYoruba and tell them why Yoruba is an important language that will add to your Twitter experience. The aim is to make our twitter presence known to the decision-makers at the twitter translation desk.

Tips: It doesn’t matter if you are not confident in your competence in Yoruba. As long as you have something to say, say it in the language and include the hashtags, and copy @translator and @twitter. If you run out of things to say, tweet songs, poems or names of your favourite Yoruba book titles with the same hashtags and copy @translator and/or @twitter . Participation is key. Join us, and please spread the message. Remember that this will succeed or fail on participation. Ẹjẹ ká lọ!

If you are reading this from Twitter’s translation desk, thanks for stopping by. We look forward to hearing from you and having Yoruba join your list of languages. E se pupo. Thanks!

Update (10.58am Central Time): We succeeded. We finally got Twitter’s attention (See below). Thank you everyone who participated, (including but not limited to @mw_indigo whose enthusiasm moved it beyond just the realm of a public conversation into a tangible project).