Mali's Academy of National Languages backs the candidacy

In a press release issued this Friday 15 May from Bamako, Mali's Academy of National Languages — the reference institution for Bambara, Fula, Songhai and Tamasheq languages — announces its official support for Juliana Amato Lumumba's candidacy for the OIF Secretariat-General.

The statement, signed by the Academy's thirty members, particularly hails the programme's third project: the Sister Languages Initiative, which proposes a Francophone framework for the systematic promotion of African national languages alongside French.

'For the first time, a Francophone programme explicitly recognises our national languages as partners of French, and not as residues to be preserved', the statement underlines. 'This recognition is a major intellectual act we hail without reservation.'

This endorsement adds to similar recent positions from several linguistic institutions across the Francophone space: Senegal's Academy of Sciences and Techniques in April, Cameroon's Centre for Applied Linguistic Research in early May. A dynamic that reinforces the linguistic pillar of the candidacy.