The research unit Langage, langues et cultures d’Afrique (“Languages and cultures of Africa”) (LLACAN, UMR 8135) was founded in 1994 and is affiliated to the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE). 

LLACAN is organised around three interacting research themes: 1) Grammatical analysis and typology, 2) Comparison, typology and reconstruction and 3) Literature in African languages, literature theory and linguistic practices.
Our research is based on primary data collected during extended periods of immersion fieldwork in Africa. Our projects focus on the documentation and analysis of the linguistic and ethnolinguistic features of languages of Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are endangered, without a writing tradition and little known, as well as the analysis of oral and written literature produced in local languages, allowing special access to the cultural background they convey.