Using information secured from school visitations and educational conferences in Africa and Asia during the second semester in 1971-72, the author reviews the current status of world literacy and offers observations on some related problems and issues. (JM)

Describes new system of conducting primary education in English instead of one of seven official Zambian languages and methods used to train teachers in the use of the new system. (RT)

The African concept of time is reinterpreted, emphasizing aspect rather than tense. Examples are taken from Black English. (MC)

Examination of a case of artificial language boundaries (Guere versus Wobe) supports arguments for a monolingual nucleus with multilingual satellites in the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast's multiple languages exaggerate linguistic heterogeneity. Integrating language attitude data into language classification could aid the language planning and…

It is argued that in the states of Francophone Africa, French is not always the language of the masses and that in light of sociolinguistic data, choice, or actual usage, new language policy accentuating national idioms is more viable than exclusive promotion of French. (38 references) (Author/MSE)

Evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the Yale Online Kamusi project, an electronic Web-based Swahili-English and English-Swahili dictionary. The dictionary is described and checked for comprehensiveness, the adequacy and quality of the glosses and definitions are tested, and a number of recommendations are made to help make it a better and…

Looks at the elaboration and exploration of content in the Swahili learning site SALAMA. Identifies within SALAMA design and implementation methods that ardently and perennially seek to lead learners to evolve learning habits of their own beyond formal instruction and textbooks. (Author/VWL)

In this article, we discuss two characteristics of the majority of current behaviour- and molecular-genetic studies of reading ability and disability, specifically, the ascertainment strategies and the populations from which samples are selected. In the context of this discussion, we present data that we collected on a sample of Swahili-speaking…

In a surprise announcement in December 1996 in a speech at the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs, the late Nigerian Head of State, General Sani Abacha said "Nigeria is resolutely launching a programme of national language training that will in a short order, permit our country to become thoroughly bilingual". General Abacha's…

This article is a report on research conducted to support the development of a multilingual literacy learning software programme for adult learners in rural Limpopo Province, South Africa. The topic of inquiry for the research was literacy learning in a multilingual environment, with special attention paid to attitudinal and metacognitive aspects.…

The community is an important stakeholder in language education, and community views are critical for the successful implementation of new language policies. This article reports on a study on multilingual language policies conducted in two primary schools in two communities in eastern Uganda, one rural and one urban, from 2005 through 2006. The…

Learning to read and write is a psycholinguistic and social process. That is why mother-tongue speakers of minority African languages find learning to read in the language they speak is a qualitatively better learning experience than learning to read in a language they are unfamiliar with. However, reading methodologies used for teaching reading…

A study examined the pattern of formation of glides in a sample of 18 Niger-Congo languages that have substantial glide formation. It is noted first that four basic pattern dualities exist, with language-specific variations, determine by whether or not: (1) glide formation applies to both front and round first vowels or round first vowels only;…

A historical narrative background for the linguistic works of Thomas Jefferson Bowen, an American missionary who was the first non-Nigerian to publish a grammar of Yoruba (1858). The author points up a need for further scholarly review of Bowen's pioneering work and contribution to Yoruba studies. (JT)