The Acting Executive Secretary of ACALAN, Dr. Lang Fafa Dampha has presented the terms of reference for the ongoing linguistic atlas project.

He made the presentation at the just concluded meeting of ACALAN with CERTODOLA and CICIBA and review of Pan-Africa Master’s and PhD programme which was held in Cameroon.

The Linguistic Atlas project is one of ACALAN’s core projects which seek to establish the precise number of African languages, their interrelations and dialectical differences. The project is also expected to determine the number of speakers of each language, their distribution, the status of the various languages, availability of language policies among other things.

Universities and other institutions are expected to play a major role in data gathering for the project while the various countries are to be approached through ACALAN’s National Structures in implementing the result of the project.

Training will also be afforded to people involved with the project if the need arises to build capacity and ensure continuity of the project.

The first phase of the project will involve countries and regions where linguistic atlases existed, the next phase will involve countries with low population density and fewer languages and round up with larger countries with no atlas.