this is touching some really important gears of steemit. cultural diff`s and language barriers. which means general popularity of steemit.
number of original users.

and you offered solution too. i would just reverse it.
people shouldnt work on adapting local communities to what steemit is now.

they should make local communities growing and selfsustainable by making quality content on local language.

Theres a lot of excellent artist, bloggers, scientists and thinkers whose work is delivered to Steemit after being filtered by translation. It would serve better to promote Steemit in their local communities, in a way that people can understand it, engage and grow.
it would also mean that authors should give focus on things that matters in their communities.