26th African languages conference opens in Winneba

Winneba, July 29, GNA - The Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Mrs Angelina Baiden-Amissah, has said if African countries forget linguistic theories and applications, languages would "retire and be classified as dead languages."

She appealed to experts in linguistics to go back for language exhumation and breathe life into the "dried bone" of languages.

Mrs. Baiden-Amissah said this when opening the 26th West African Languages conference at the University of Education, Winneba on Monday.

The eight-day conference is under the theme "Language documentation in support of West African Languages".

Two hundred participants from higher educational institutions in Cote D'Ivoire, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Gambia, Liberia, Senegal, Togo, Chad, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Niger are attending.

Mrs Baiden-Amissah said whilst "we appreciate and recognize the important role that English plays in today's global world, it is still crucial for us to take steps to speak, write and research into African languages"

She said African languages remained the only most powerful

implements by which majority of Africans can participate and

understand broad issues in education, health, government, poverty

and ignorance. She said the new education reforms have attached great

importance to research and development of materials for teaching 12

Ghanaian languages from the kindergarten to junior high school. Mrs Baiden-Amissah said most of the books that the government

invited publishers to public in all disciplines including Ghanaians

Languages at the basic level would come out in September this year. Dr. Emmanuel N. Abaka, Dean of faculty of Languages of the

University of Education (UEW), expressed concern that after 51

years of political independence the average Ghanaian thinks the

"study of Ghanaian Languages is synonymous with mediocrity". He said some educated people do not speak the Ghanaian

languages with their children at home and the end result is that it is

rare to find a Ghanaian who can speak his or her mother tongue

impeccably. The Vice chancellor of the University of Education, Professor

Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, said the UEW is totally committed to the

preservation and revitalization of the local languages and cultures.