African Languages and Cyberspace
 
AFRICAN ACADEMY OF LANGUAGES
(ACALAN)
AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION
 
 

 
 
 


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2012 Focus areas
   
acalanEstablishment of the remaining Organs
acalanImplementation of the 2012 ACALAN Work Plan
acalanEstablishment of the remaining Working Structures
       
       
Executive Secretary
   

Prof. Sozinho Francisco Matsinhe, PhD
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Past events


Pretoria, August 28 – September 01, 2011 - Conference on African Renaissance Integration and Development as a contribution to the Campaign for African Renaissance

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Bamako (Mali), 1-5 September 2011 - An International Jury meets to designate the winners of the sixth Edition of the ECOWAS Prize of Excellence in African Languages and Music in Bamako

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Nairobi, August 24-26, 2011 - Operational and planning workshop of the Kiswahili and Malagasy Vehicular Cross-Border Language Commissions

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Project on African Languages and Cyberspace

ACALAN as the specialized Institution for African Union with a mandate to develop Languages in Africa believes that given the current situation of African languages, it is clear that there is need to reposition, revalorize and empower them so that they can be used in a wider range of domains. Besides, since there is a high degree of illiteracy in Africa, there is no alternative to the use of African languages for literacy and for ensuring mass participation in development which will in turn impact on Economic empowerment within the continent.

This project is a follow-up to the workshop on African Languages and the Cyberspace held in Bamako in 2006 and to the conference on the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, under the auspice of African Union Commission. ACALAN intends to implement the project on African languages in the cyberspace.

The aim of the project is to identify and disseminate work on African languages in the cyberspace, identify common ground and create synergies, while standardizing procedures on the work on ICT and African languages. This project aims at equipping the African languages with appropriate terminology that will allow them to respond to the demands imposed by the ICTs, the cornerstone of a knowledge-based society. Specifically the project will identify and disseminate work on African languages in the cyberspace, identify common ground and create synergies, while standardizing procedures on the work on ICT and African languages.

The following activities will be undertaken:

    • Conduct a workshop of practitioners and experts on ICT and African languages to assess the availability, i.e. how much of the 12 VCBLs are available on the cyberspace. In others words, a quantitative and qualitative assessment of presence of African languages on cyberspace.

    • Establish a thematic database and development of various softwares on the writing systems and translation pertaining to African languages.

    • Dissemination of classified information

    • Systematically update the database and the in-service training of the Web Master..
       

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