In reaction to student demand, Harvard has created a new program enabling students to study an impressive array of African languages and travel to Kenya, Niger and Ghana during the summer.

The African Languages Program, unveiled this year by the Department of African and African American Studies, reflects the department’s efforts to fill a long-perceived gap in the offerings for students interested in studying Africa.

The expanded offerings may come as a surprise to some students, as none of the new language courses appear in this semester’s catalogue.

Details of the program were still being ironed out late into the summer and were not ready to be set in print.

But despite the limited fanfare, the new program is definitely up and running, according to its organizers.

“With the launch of these courses, we hope to become the leading institution in North America in the study of Africa,” Chair of the African Studies Committee Emmanuel Akyeampong said in a prepared statement.

According to John M. Mugane, director of the new program, only four or five African languages are commonly taught in American universities. But Harvard plans to offer at least 10.

And while many other schools’ language programs are dependent on government support through individual African studies centers, Harvard “has made a commitment to Africa independent of federal funding,” according to Akyeampong.

The new program is designed to emphasize oral fluency, reading comprehension and written expression.

“There is a crying need for rigorous intellectual study of Africa. This requires some facility in language,” Akyeampong said.

Both faculty and students have noted the void in the Africa curriculum at Harvard in recent years.

“The Committee on African Studies has always known the need for such a program existed,” Mugane said, and numerous student e-mails and queries drove home the urgency of that need.

Two years ago the Committee on African Studies conducted a survey to examine student interest in African languages and investigate which would be most popular, if offered.

In reaction to the survey results, Wolof was offered for the first time last year. Its popularity confirmed that the language program would be welcome.

This year student demand for African languages remains strong. Twelve students have expressed interest in taking Igbo, eight in Twi and five in Zulu, according to Akyeampong.