MyWeku

Africa’s linguistic traditions vary enormously across all 53 countries. The languages spoken on the continent provide priceless insight into the cultural norms, history and literature of its people. For those who may have been born and raised in the African diaspora, the importance of their mother tongue is invaluable, in preserving their heritage.

CrossDialect (a company we’ve known about for over a year), plays an integral part in promoting and celebrating African languages. It provides interactive language learning resources and services to raise awareness of future generations losing the ability to speak or understand their mother tongue.

Alice Ako, the founder of CrossDialect told us that the company uses CDs and DVDs as the main medium of instruction. The languages that CrossDialect provides services for include Ashanti-twi, Ga, Ewe and Yoruba. Asked what her inspirations for setting up CrossDialect was, Alice Ako told us that “The inspiration came as a result of my then 10 year old son, constantly asking me when I can teach him to speak our mother tongue – Ashanti Twi. I did try looking for language study resources but could not find any on the market or shops to help him learn to speak his mother tongue. That gave me the impetus to set up CrossDialect as I prayed to God that this is what I needed to do to help in raising awareness and encouraging our future generation to learn to speak their mother tongue”.

According to Alice, the sheer number of Africans – Ghanaians, Nigerians, Kenyans and South Africans to mention a few scattered all over the world provides CrossDialect with a potentially massive market.

The company, which recently won the Ghana Professional Awards, is based in Mitcham, Surrey in the UK. Professor Felix Konotey-Ahulu, an innovator in tonal linguistics and keen supporter of CrossDialect states that “Every African parent needs to take this unique opportunity that Alice Ako has provided to teach our people their mother tongue”.