Hamadine AG MOCTAR
Founder of Tadaksahak Learning and HAM Global-Words · interpreter, translator, developer and writer
The founder
Hamadine AG MOCTAR is the creator of Tadaksahak Learning and its assistant. An interpreter, translator, developer and writer, he describes himself as a “guardian of cultural memory”, with one mission: “connecting our worlds”. He founded and runs the HAM Global-Words agency (www.hamadine-services.com).
Born in the desert, he learned Tadaksahak from his mother. He learned his other languages on the road: French in government offices, Arabic in mosques, Hausa in markets, English on the roads of exile. His life has unfolded between Mali, Niger and Benin. He has lived through exile, camps and the loss of an arm, which he accepts as divine decree, without shame, and without giving up: “This is not a survivor’s life; it is a creator’s life.”
Skills
- Languages: Tadaksahak (mother tongue), French, Arabic, Hausa, English, Tamasheq
- Interpreting and translation: an interpreter between languages and cultures, a “bridge of meaning between worlds”; translation, interpreting and web development services offered by the HAM Global-Words agency
- Development: designer of Tadaksahak Learning (multilingual dictionary, grammar, library, research space of the working group, artificial intelligence assistant)
- Memory and research: gathering and publishing sources on the Idaksahak; technical coordination of the working group on their origins
- Writing: author of an autobiographical narrative, poems and songs
Contact : agmoctar@hamadine-services.com · HAM Global-Words website
A word from the founder
My mother gave me Tadaksahak the way one entrusts a treasure to a child setting out on a long road. She told me about our ancestors, the roads they travelled, the promises left in the sand. I grew up understanding that a people does not die first by weapons: it dies when no one remembers its words any more.
The Idaksahak have come through centuries, droughts, exiles and wars. Our elders carried knowledge in their memory and peace in their hands. Many have gone without their voices being recorded, without their faces being named. We owe at least this to those who have fallen: not to forget them.
Tadaksahak Learning was born of this duty of memory. It is a dictionary, a grammar, a library, an archive gallery, a research space and an artificial intelligence. But above all it is a promise: that our language be written, heard and taught; that our history be built on evidence, not rumour; and that our grandchildren can read it, check it and carry it forward.
Some will say the ambition is too great for a language so few people speak. I answer that our ancestors crossed the Sahara with less. I lost an arm, not my drive. I have no diploma, but I learned from roads, markets, mosques and my mother. If one man, almost alone, with patience and faith, can build this, then a whole people can build far more.
This platform is open to everyone: to the Idaksahak here and in the diaspora, to researchers, to the curious, to all humanity. I do not write to be read. I write so that we remember.
Our visions
- Keep the language alive. Every speaker and learner should find Tadaksahak written, pronounced and explained: every word with its voice, every rule with its examples, and a writing system chosen by the community.
- Rebuild history on evidence. Gather every writing, testimony and family tree, then separate what independent sources agree on from what remains debated. The accounts will then be tested against oral inquiries, following the working group’s method.
- Keep the memory of our people. Preserve faces, voices and names: the elders, the heads of fractions, the martyrs, gatherings such as Boudada in 1994. Time and war must not erase them.
- Pass it on. Give children and grandchildren a clear, sourced history that they can continue without checking everything again.
- Open it to the world. Make this knowledge available to all humanity, free of charge, in three languages, while respecting those who produced it: every author cited, every source named.
- Put technology at the service of a small language. Show that a language spoken by a few tens of thousands of people can have its own dictionary, library and artificial intelligence, built by its own people.
What the platform brings together
Tadaksahak Learning: learning the language of the Idaksahak, building their history on evidence and keeping their memory, free for all.
Tadaksahak Learning is a free, open platform in French, English and Arabic. It is for learning Tadaksahak, the language of the Idaksahak, and for getting to know this people: their history, their culture and their present situation.
- The language: a multilingual dictionary with pronunciations, grammar lessons, phonology, quizzes and flashcards.
- The culture: tales and radio broadcasts transcribed and translated, a historical timeline, and an archive gallery, including Charles Grémont’s photographs and those of the community’s first congress at Boudada in 1994.
- Knowledge: a library of books and theses, including Regula Christiansen-Bolli’s grammar in full text, reports, a bibliography and the validated work of the research group.
- The research space: the working group’s tool on the origins of the Idaksahak. Documents, testimonies and family trees are collected, analysed, then validated by consensus. The research group is appointed by the Permanent Secretariat of the Idaksahak community, chaired by the Honourable Moussa AG Acharatoumane; its research commission is chaired by Mohamed AG Nadroun. Abdoul-Jalil Ag Salah and Hamadine AG MOCTAR, researchers and developers, contribute to it.
- The assistant: it answers from all these resources and cites its sources. It separates what the writings agree on from what they dispute, reads the files it is given and can add a web search.