The Ag Executive Secretary of the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), Dr. Lang Fafa Dampha has restated ACALAN';s commitment to harmonize the writing systems of vehicular cross border languages, a project he says is central to the operations of the Academy.
He made the disclosure while speaking at the just concluded workshop on the ';Harmonization of Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kiswahili, Luganda, Malagasy and Somali Vehicular Cross Border Languages'; which took place in Kampala, Uganda.
Dr. Dampha said, "We want to continue harmonizing African languages; this is like the foundation of our work, because if we don';t harmonize the writing systems of our languages, anybody can just decide to write them the way they want. We must have a standardized, harmonized writing system so that we can maximize resources and minimize cost. A book written in Kiswahili for instance in Tanzania can be read wherever Kiswahili is spoken, say in Kenya."
He added that all vehicular cross border language commissions identified harmonization of the writing system of their languages as a priority area and hence it is an important program for the Academy.
In a related development, ACALAN’s Ag Executive Secretary also highlighted some of the Academy';s achievements, which include the establishment of 18 vehicular cross border language commissions.
Also, according to the statutes of ACALAN, each member state is required to identify a structure that will be dealing with language development matters in the country. We are appealing to our member states to help us whenever they receive a letter from ACALAN requesting national structures. We should all join hands to ensure we get the national structures.
"We also have a scientific journal call KUWALA, which means light in Cinyanja/Chichewa, a language spoken in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. ACALAN structures and interested parties can write scientific articles for publication. ACALAN has also developed a methodical framework for terminology development." he said.
Dr Dampha equally highlighted the importance of having a language policy for each member state of the African Union.
"Each member state should develop a language policy. The objective is to try and situate and determine the position and role of African languages in national development programs within the context of the Language Plan of Action for Africa, (LPAA), which says that each member state should have a language policy, and work towards using African languages as languages of instruction, official languages and languages in the media.
