HU World Languages Festival Highlights

The Department of World Languages and Cultures, led by chair, Dr. Leonard Muaka, hosted the World Languages Festival on Feb 14 and Feb 15 in Locke Hall. A variety of cultural activities by students were presented to showcase the different languages and cultures that are taught in the department.

The Department of World Languages & Cultures offers 15 different foreign languages, amongst those are African languages: Akan Twi, Amharic, Arabic, Swahili, Wolof, Yoruba and Zulu. Indigenous African languages serve as windows into how social, cultural, political and economic institutions and processes develop and operate.  With more than 2000 languages, the languages that are taught at Howard are key because they are spoken across borders and are key to the understanding of how African people in neighboring countries understand, organize, and maintain their cultures from one generation to the next. In brief, all the African languages offered at Howard serve as languages of wider communication and are therefore important in regional commerce, governance and development.

Akofa D. Bruce, a junior student with a Political Science major and a Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies minor, who is from the Bronx, NY, and Accra, Ghana, highlighted some of the festivities during the event with her photography.

See full photo album here.