Located at the main campus of Addis Ababa University, the Academy of Ethiopian Languages and Cultures is a nationally mandated institution by the government to fully undertake research in Ethiopian Languages and Cultures. The Academy is discharging its main responsibilities of studying, documenting, preserving and promoting Ethiopian languages and cultures and disseminating research outputs for awareness. It admirably contributed for the promotion and development of the various languages and cultures of the country through designing orthographies, and conducting research on grammatical descriptions. With regard to culture/folklore, it also contributed well through studying, collecting, documenting and publishing books of oral tradition, indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and sayings based on the data collected from various regions of Ethiopia.

In addition, the Academy has compiled and published monolingual, bilingual, trilingual, and quadrilingual dictionaries in different languages of the country. In this respect, dictionaries in Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, Wolayta, Sidama and the like languages would be good examples. The Academy has also carried out a cross-disciplinary project on terminology and translation of scientific and technological terms involving 13 closely related fields of study of the natural sciences funded and collaborated by UNESCO and former Science and Technology Commission, respectively. It also carried out ICT terms translation project in collaboration with the ICT development office of AAU; and it was funded by the Ethiopian ICT Development Agency.

As Ge’ez is a store house of classical literary works of ancient and medieval Ethiopia, the Academy carried on translating traditional Ge’ez Qene into Amharic and published the results with imports to the advancement of Ethiopian modern literature. Kibre Negest features as good example in this regard. The Academy also has its own journal named Zena-Lissan Journal of the Academy of Ethiopian Languages and Cultures, which is published biannually.

The Academy of Ethiopian Languages and Cultures works closely with all communities in Ethiopia and it disseminates its research findings to relevant bodies in the communities so that they can be used for policy purposes and development planning.