Professor of Geography at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Prof. Olayinka Ajala has highlighted the relevance of the linguistic atlas of Africa. He opined that an atlas of African languages will help identify the status of the languages spoken across Africa.

He made this known in an exclusive interview with CEOAfrica at the just concluded ACALAN workshop for the Linguistic Atlas for Africa held in Cote d'voire.

"The linguistic atlas project will help us identify the status of languages spoken across Africa, it will help us to know the vibrant languages and those going to extinction. It will enable us to know who speak what dialect in every part of Africa. We also want to promote these languages, to trace those who use certain languages across countries like the Yoruba language is also used in parts of Benin Republic, Togo, Sierra Leone and Cote d'voire," he stated.

On how the language atlas can help the younger generations to embrace their indigenous languages, Prof. Ajala said, "The atlas will be something that will be preserved, that will be published in form of books as a compendium of language in all parts of Africa and by that when the younger ones are looking at it and see where they come from, they will develop interest."

He also enjoined parents and guardians to encourage their children to speak their indigenous languages.

"I also want to appeal to the older generations to imbibe the culture of using our indigenous languages with our children at home, so that they will know the origin of their language by that they will be able to preserve such language," he noted.