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ACALAN
African Academy of Languages
African Union
                 

Achievements & Perspective

Among others, ACALAN has:

  1. Identified forty-one (41) Vehicular Cross-border Languages on which ACALAN is now focusing;
  2. Selected twelve (12) out of the forty-one (41) Vehicular Cross-border Languages for the establishment of the first batch of Vehicular Cross-border Language Commissions.
  3. Established Fifteen (15) Vehicular Cross-border Language Commissions:
  • Chichewa/Chinyanja and Setswana in Southern Africa;
  • Fulfulde, Hausa, Mandenkan, Yoruba and Wolof in West Africa;
  • Kiswahili, Somali, Malagasy, Kinyarwanda /Kirundi/Kihangaza/Giha/Rufumbira and Luganda/Lusoga/Lugwere in East Africa;
  • Beti-fang, Kikongo and Lingala in Central Africa.
  1. Designation of twenty-nine (29) Focal Points in the Member States of the African Union.
  2. The following priority areas of the Vehicular Cross-border Language Commissions have been transformed into implementable projects:
  • The harmonisation and standardisation of the writing systems of the Chichewa/Chinyanja, Fulfulde, Hausa, Mandenkan, Setswana and Wolof Vehicular Cross-border Languages;
  • Capacity building for the Chichewa/Chinyanja, Setswana, Fulfulde, Hausa, Mandenkan, Kikongo and Lingala Vehicular Cross-border Language Commissions;
  • The training of teachers of African Languages (L1 methodology);
  • The training of media professionals in African languages.
  • Development of a spell-checker for the Hausa Vehicular Cross-border Language.
  • The launching of the ACALAN journal (Kuwala) in January 2014.
  • Development of a methodological framework for the creation of terminology and lexicography.
  • The launching of a corpus building project for African languages: Fulfulde, Kiswahili, Wolof, Yoruba...

ACALAN has, among others, the following immediate perspectives:

  • Finalise the establishment, and identification of the working structures of ACALAN: VCLC and focal points in Member States;
  • Develop a linguistic atlas of Africa;
  • Implement all the core projects and the transformation of more priority areas of the VCLCs into implementable projects.
  • Continue collaborating with the Ministries of Education and of Culture of Member States in revamping the system of education in Africa;
  • Continue collaborating with Member States of the African Union with a view of elaborating national language policies which will lead to a continental language policy.