A routine repair in Yaba has led to what engineers call the largest verified offline speech-translation library built for a consumer smartphone. The app, named SoroBridge, can translate spoken phrases in 104 languages without mobile data, including 67 Nigerian languages, according to a test completed in Lagos on Friday.
The discovery came when Ismaon Poh, a phone repairer, was clearing storage on a refurbished handset after replacing its charging port. He found an unlabelled 11.6-gigabyte language package, tapped its microphone and tried a phrase in Hausa. The phone replied in Yoruba. “I thought it was a prank until I switched off the data and it still worked,” Poh said.
A hidden package, tested in public
Poh shared a short demonstration with SoroBridge Labs, the Lagos software company behind the package. The handset had been used by a local language volunteer who had installed a test version, the company said. Engineers checked its files, then invited independent testers to try the app on nine different Android phones.
The testers ran 2,400 spoken phrase pairs, including greetings, directions and requests for help. They confirmed the software could translate between all 104 languages without contacting a server. The test did not certify every translation as perfect: results were strongest for common phrases, while rare words and regional accents still caused mistakes.
Miriam Herzog-Rausch, a language-technology researcher at the fictional Lagos Centre for Speech Computing, said the achievement was the size of the offline library, not a claim that a phone could replace a human interpreter. “Keeping so many language models on an ordinary handset, and making them work with no signal, is a serious engineering first,” she said.
Built for patchy connections
SoroBridge Labs says the package grew out of work with volunteer translators and was designed for places where data service is costly or unreliable. The company spent ₦18 million (about €10,200) on field testing and compression, according to its chief executive, Kemi Givens, a former broadcaster who now serves as the project’s public language envoy.
Givens said the firm would offer the basic version free, with an optional paid package for travel operators and public agencies. “The point is that a person should be able to ask for directions in their own voice, even when the network has disappeared,” she said. The software stores audio on the phone; users can delete recordings from its settings.
The app’s first public demonstration drew bus drivers, traders and students to a small hall near Yaba’s railway station on Friday. Attendees tried short exchanges in Igbo, Fulfulde and Tiv, then compared the spoken results with one another. Several laughed when the software rendered a slang greeting too literally, but testers said the basic directions were clear.
The company plans to add 20 more Nigerian languages by mid-2027, subject to further recording and review by speakers. Poh has been invited to help test the next version. He said he still fixes phones for a living, but now checks the storage of every handset he opens: “You never know what somebody has left behind that might help the next person.”
