READERS IN AJAMI AND COMPANION MULTIMEDIA WEBSITE

Although Ajami (using modified Arabic scripts to write African languages) is a centuries-old tradition throughout Muslim Africa, only Boston University has incorporated Ajami, along with Latin script writing systems, into its language curricula. The Readers in Ajami project (Project RIA) brings to bear our extensive experience in developing specialized instructional materials for African languages. With the expertise of US and West Africa-based specialists in Ajami, African Linguistics, Pedagogy, Social Anthropology, Digital Technology, and Web Design, Project RIA (Readers in Ajami) produces readers and multimedia online educational resources in each of the three key languages of Muslim Africa: Hausa, Wolof and Mandinka. These resources open up the world of Ajami to African language teachers in the US, students, scholars, and NGO and other professionals. They are of interest to those in a wide range of fields including marketing, business and economy; health and medicine; agriculture and the environment; human rights, politics and diplomacy; and religion, history, and the arts in Muslim West Africa. Project RIA textual and multimedia resources is the first of their kind to address the significant need for specialized instructional materials for African languages with rich Ajami traditions.

            The primary objective of Project RIA is to provide students, teachers and American  professionals who work in Hausa, Mandinka, and Wolof societies—including Peace Corps volunteers, diplomats, journalists, business people, NGO employees, and academics—with the language, literacy and cultural skills they need to engage the millions of Hausa, Mandinka, and Wolof Ajami users in West Africa. Although these Ajami users form major constituencies within their societies, they have been hitherto excluded from African language teaching and instructional materials. Anchored in the “Five 5 Cs” of the National Standards in Foreign Language Education in the 21st Century, Project RIA readers and companion website will enable students and various American professionals to become bridge builders to these little-understood but increasingly important Muslim societies of the Sahel region. The users of Project RIA resources will be well equipped, not only with specialized linguistic competencies relevant to their respective professions, but also with the cultural literacy needed to foster successful cross-cultural dialogue, knowledge transmission, and solution-seeking.

            By producing Ajami readers in Hausa, Wolof, and Mandinka and a rich multimedia educational companion website, Project RIA provides a template and a methodology that can be replicated for other languages of Muslim Africa with dual literacy systems (Ajami and Latin script) such as Somali, Kanuri, Yoruba, Oromo, Tigrigna, Kiswahili, and Fula. Project RIA will provide an optimal model of how to build, evaluate and sustain specialized instructional resources in both textual and digital formats that incorporate local voices and knowledge recorded in multiple Ajami scripts – something many academics and professionals have overlooked for centuries.