The Senior Project & Program officer of the African Academy of Languages, ACALAN, Dr. Babajide Ojo has affirmed that the ongoing meeting on linguistic atlas is to ascertain the number of indigenous languages spoken across Africa.

He made this known in an interview with ACALAN TV in Yaounde on Monday. He said, “First of all, I want to thank the leadership of ACALAN for making this program a reality. The program is about knowing how many languages we have in Africa and then been able to plan for the development of these languages.

“If we know what we have we would be able to develop it, that is the essence of we coming to central Africa. Central Africa has been blazing the trail, working assiduously on making the number of languages we have in the region available. The whole essence is for us to know what we have, how to plan for it and how to develop it and make it available for everyone.

He further added that the linguistic atlas, once produced would be of huge benefit to the Africans especially and humanity in general.

“It would help in the development of the education of the youths. We have the issue of ICT coming into it, it is a way of adding value to African languages, so that it becomes a tool of economic development,“ he stated.