African American Linguists

The vision of AAL is to promote a bilingual society within the African-American community in order to prepare marketable citizens for a global economy. 

What is the Rationale behind the Organization of African-American Linguists?

As stated by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL): "Discover Languages, Discover the World," the need for an ambitious effort to promote the value of language learning is clear.  Such learning offers social, cultural, academic and workplace benefits that will serve students all their lives.  Americans live and compete in a world of diverse cultures and races, a world where competence in more than one language is an essential part of communication and understanding.  Our ability to understand and be understood by other nationalities can only enhance our own national security.  We do business with many countries and we rely on their citizens as consumers of U.S.-produced goods and services.  Just as important, our country welcomes new citizens from diverse cultures from many nations.  We live, work and play with such 'new Americans' and our ability to understand their diverse cultural and social backgrounds is key to our expanded role as citizens of the international community.  We must be able to communicate with and learn from all people for whom English is not a native language.  Finally, the disciplines learned during the study of languages and literature endow language learners with cognitive, analytical and communication skills that carry over into many other areas of their academic studies and future success.  That success, in fact, will deliver valuable dividends to the businesses and organizations for which they work.