The linguistic atlas project is one of the many projects currently been undertaken by the African Academy of languages, ACALAN. Before now there have not been enough data to say for a fact the number of languages spoken in Africa. Many have speculated different figures in the past but there is need for an officially acceptable and accurate figure.

It is with this in mind that ACALAN set out on this project of developing a language atlas of Africa with the aim of establishing precisely the number of languages spoken in Africa.

Speaking in a recent interview with CEOAfrica in Brazzaville, Acting  Executive Secretary of ACALAN, Dr. Lang Fafa Dampha stated that, "the objective of the linguistic atlas of Africa is to determine precisely the number of African languages, their interrelations, dialectical variations so it can help us in corpus planning, economic, socioeconomic planning and also in the effective development of these languages".

African Union, AU the parent body for ACALAN considers regional economic communities as building blocks of African integration and development, ACALAN therefore in a bid to achieve its set objective brought together member states of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS.

The fifteen (15) member states of ECOWAS and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania were assembled in a workshop in Abidjan, cartographers and demographers from each country was on hand to work on developing a language atlas for their respective countries. Demographers made presentations of the language and demographic situations in their countries. Questionnaires were administered and the information derived from the questionnaires served as guide.

At the end of the workshop, language atlas for the various countries were developed,the status of the languages identified, their interrelations and dialectical variations were also identified.