SMS

"Short Message Service (SMS), often called text messaging, is a means of sending short messages to and from mobile phones." (Wikipedia)

ASCII, Unicode & message length

SMS messages can be of 160 ASCII characters. When non-ASCII characters (such as Latin extended characters) are used, the message length is restricted to 70. [need more info - there was a discussion on the Unicode mail list about this beginning 2006/5/28]

SMS in African languages

In principle one type text messages in any language with a basic ASCII characters, provided the workarounds or transliterations are understood by the receiver.

Some companies are facilitating input with technology like predictive text, such as for South African languages.

A prototype has been developed in Ethiopia for Amharic SMS.

References

Archives of the Unicode Mail List http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/

Wikipedia, "Short message service," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service