Languages of Africa
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
- Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa.
- Afroasiatic languages are spread throughout Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel.
- Indo-European languages are spoken in South Africa and Namibia and are used as lingua francas in the former colonies of Britain and Liberia that was part of Society, former colonies of France and of Belgium, former colonies of Portugal, former colonies of Italy, former colonies of Spain and the current Spanish territories of Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands.
- Various families of Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken from Tanzania to Eritrea and Sudan and from Chad to Mali.
- Austronesian languages are spoken in Madagascar.
- Khoe–Kwadi languages are spoken principally in Namibia and Botswana.
The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at "over 3,000".
Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. However, "One of the notable differences between Africa and most other linguistic areas is its relative uniformity. With few exceptions, all of Africa’s languages have been gathered into four major phyla."
Around a hundred languages are widely used for inter-ethnic communication. Arabic, Somali, Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Manding, Fulani and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people. Twelve dialect clusters are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language. Although many mid-sized languages are used on the radio, in newspapers and in primary-school education, and some of the larger ones are considered national languages, only a few are official at the national level. The African Union declared 2006 the "Year of African Languages".
Language groups
Most languages spoken in Africa belong to one of three large language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger–Congo. Another hundred belong to smaller families such as Ubangian and the various families called Khoisan, or the Indo-European and Austronesian language families mainly spoken outside Africa; the presence of the latter two dates to 2,600 and 1,500 years ago, respectively. In addition, the languages of Africa include several unclassified languages and sign languages.The earliest Afroasiatic languages are associated with the Capsian culture, the Nilo-Saharan languages are linked with the Khartoum Mesolithic/Neolithic, the Niger-Congo languages are correlated with the west and central African hoe-based farming traditions and the Khoisan languages are matched with the south and southeastern Wilton industries. More broadly, the Afroasiatic family is tentatively grouped within the Nostratic superfamily, and the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo phyla form the Niger-Saharan macrophylum.
Afroasiatic languages
are spoken throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia and parts of the Sahel. There are approximately 375 Afroasiatic languages spoken by over 400 million people. The main subfamilies of Afroasiatic are Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian and Semitic. The Afroasiatic Urheimat is uncertain. The family's most extensive branch, the Semitic languages, is the only branch of Afroasiatic that is spoken outside Africa.Some of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Arabic, Somali, Berber, Hausa, Amharic and Oromo. Of the world's surviving language families, Afroasiatic has the longest written history, as both the Akkadian language of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egyptian are members.
Nilo-Saharan languages
consist of a hundred diverse languages. The proposed family has a speech area that stretches from the Nile Valley to northern Tanzania and into Nigeria and DR Congo, with the Songhay languages along the middle reaches of the Niger River as a geographic outlier. Genetic linkage between these languages has not been conclusively demonstrated, and among linguists, support for the proposal is sparse. The languages share some unusual morphology, but if they are related, most of the branches must have undergone major restructuring since diverging from their common ancestor. The inclusion of the Songhay languages is questionable, and doubts have been raised over the Koman, Gumuz and Kadu branches.Some of the better known Nilo-Saharan languages are Kanuri, Fur, Songhay, Nobiin and the widespread Nilotic family, which includes the Luo, Dinka and Maasai. The Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal.
Niger–Congo languages
The Niger–Congo languages constitute the largest language family spoken in West Africa and perhaps the world in terms of the number of languages. One of its salient features is an elaborate noun class system with grammatical concord. A large majority of languages of this family are tonal such as Yoruba and Igbo, Ashanti and Ewe language. A major branch of Niger–Congo languages is the Bantu phylum, which has a wider speech area than the rest of the family.The Niger–Kordofanian language family, joining Niger–Congo with the Kordofanian languages of south-central Sudan, was proposed in the 1950s by Joseph Greenberg. Today, linguists often use "Niger–Congo" to refer to this entire family, including Kordofanian as a subfamily. One reason for this is that it is not clear whether Kordofanian was the first branch to diverge from rest of Niger–Congo. Mande has been claimed to be equally or more divergent. Niger–Congo is generally accepted by linguists, though a few question the inclusion of Mande and Dogon, and there is no conclusive evidence for the inclusion of Ubangian.
Other language families
Several languages spoken in Africa belong to language families concentrated or originating outside the African continent.Austronesian
belongs to the Austronesian languages and is the westernmost branch of the family. It is the national and co-official language of Madagascar and one of Malagasy dialects called Bushi is also spoken in Mayotte.The ancestors of the Malagasy people migrated to Madagascar around 1,500 years ago from Southeast Asia, more specifically the island of Borneo. The origins of how they arrived to Madagascar remains a mystery, however the Austronesians are known for their seafaring culture. Despite the geographical isolation, Malagasy still has strong resemblance to Barito languages especially the Ma'anyan language of southern Borneo.
With more than 20 million speakers, Malagasy is one of the most widely spoken of the Austronesian languages.
Indo-European
is Indo-European, as is most of the vocabulary of most African creole languages. Afrikaans evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in the course of the 18th century, including the loss of verbal conjugation, as well as grammatical case and gender. Most Afrikaans speakers live in South Africa. In Namibia it is the lingua franca and in Botswana and Zimbabwe it is a minority language of roughly several ten thousand people. Overall 15 to 20 million people are estimated to speak Afrikaans.Since the colonial era, Indo-European languages such as Afrikaans, English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish have held official status in many countries, and are widely spoken, generally as lingua francas. German was once used in Germany's colonies there from the late 1800s until World War I, when Britain and France took over and revoked German's official status. Despite this, German is still spoken in Namibia, mostly among the white population. Although it lost its official status in the 1990s, it has been redesignated as a national language. Indian languages such as Gujarati are spoken by South Asian expatriates exclusively. In earlier historical times, other Indo-European languages could be found in various parts of the continent, such as Old Persian and Greek in Egypt, Latin and Vandalic in North Africa and Modern Persian in the Horn of Africa.
Small families
The three small Khoisan families of southern Africa have not been shown to be closely related to any other major language family. In addition, there are various other families that have not been demonstrated to belong to one of these families.- Mande, some 70 languages, including the major languages of Mali and Guinea. These are generally thought to be divergent Niger–Congo, but debate persists.
- Ubangian, some 70 languages, centered on the languages of the Central African Republic; may be Niger–Congo
- Khoe, around 10 languages, the primary family of Khoisan languages of Namibia and Botswana
- Sandawe, an isolate of Tanzania, possibly related to Khoe
- Kx’a, a language of Southern Africa
- Tuu, or Taa-ǃKwi, two surviving languages
- Hadza, an isolate of Tanzania
- Bangime, a likely isolate of Mali
- Jalaa, a likely isolate of Nigeria
- Laal, a possible isolate of Chad
Creole languages
Due partly to its multilingualism and its colonial past, a substantial proportion of the world's creole languages are to be found in Africa. Some are based on Indo-European languages ; some are based on Arabic ; some are based on local languages ; while in Cameroon a creole based on French, English and local African languages known as Camfranglais has started to become popular.Unclassified languages
A fair number of unclassified languages are reported in Africa. Many remain unclassified simply for lack of data; among the better-investigated ones that continue to resist easy classification are:- possibly Afroasiatic: Ongota, Gomba
- possibly Nilo-Saharan: Shabo
- possibly Niger–Congo: Jalaa, Mbre, Bayot
- possibly Khoe: Kwadi
- unknown: Laal, Mpre
Less-well investigated languages include Irimba, Luo, Mawa, Rer Bare, Bete, Bung, Kujarge, Lufu, Meroitic, Oropom and Weyto. Several of these are extinct, and adequate comparative data is thus unlikely to be forthcoming. Hombert & Philippson list a number of African languages that have been classified as language isolates at one point or another. Many of these are simply unclassified, but Hombert & Philippson believe Africa has about twenty language families, including isolates. Beside the possibilities listed above, there are:
- Aasax or Aramanik
- Imeraguen - Hassaniyya Arabic restructured on an Azêr base
- Kara
- Oblo
- Defaka
- Dompo
Sign languages
Sign language systems extant in Africa include the Paget Gorman Sign System used in Namibia and Angola, the Sudanese Sign languages used in Sudan and South Sudan, the Arab Sign languages used across the Arab Mideast, the Francosign languages used in Francophone Africa and other areas such as Ghana and Tunisia, and the Tanzanian Sign languages used in Tanzania.
Language in Africa
Throughout the long multilingual history of the African continent, African languages have been subject to phenomena like language contact, language expansion, language shift and language death. A case in point is the Bantu expansion, in which Bantu-speaking peoples expanded over most of Sub-Equatorial Africa, displacing Khoi-San speaking peoples from much of Southeast Africa and Southern Africa and other peoples from Central Africa. Another example is the Arab expansion in the 7th century, which led to the extension of Arabic from its homeland in Asia, into much of North Africa and the Horn of Africa.Trade languages are another age-old phenomenon in the African linguistic landscape. Cultural and linguistic innovations spread along trade routes and languages of peoples dominant in trade developed into languages of wider communication. Of particular importance in this respect are Berber, Jula, Fulfulde, Hausa, Lingala, Swahili, Somali and Arabic.
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former colonial language, to be used in government and education. However, in recent years, African countries have become increasingly supportive of maintaining linguistic diversity. Language policies that are being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism.
Official languages
Besides the former colonial languages of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, the following languages are official at the national level in Africa :;Afroasiatic
- Arabic in Algeria, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia and Zanzibar
- Berber in Morocco and Algeria
- Amharic in Ethiopia
- Somali in Somalia, Djibouti, and Ethiopia
- Tigrinya in Eritrea and Tigray
- Malagasy in Madagascar
- Seychelles Creole in Seychelles
- Afrikaans in South Africa
- Chewa in Malawi and Zimbabwe
- Comorian in the Comoros
- Kinyarwanda in Rwanda
- Kirundi in Burundi
- Sesotho in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe
- Setswana/Tswana in Botswana and South Africa
- Shona, Sindebele in Zimbabwe
- Sepedi in South Africa
- Ndebele in South Africa
- Swahili in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda
- Swati in Eswatini and South Africa
- Tsonga in South Africa
- Venda in South Africa
- Xhosa in South Africa
- Zulu in South Africa
| Language | Family | Official Status per Country |
| Afrikaans | Indo-European | South Africa |
| Amharic | Afroasiatic | Ethiopia |
| Arabic | Afroasiatic | Algeria, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, |
| Berber | Afroasiatic | Algeria, Morocco |
| Chewa | Niger-Congo | Malawi, Zimbabwe |
| Comorian | Niger-Congo | Comoros |
| Kinyarwanda | Niger-Congo | Rwanda |
| Kirundi | Niger-Congo | Burundi |
| Malagasy | Austronesian | Madagascar |
| Ndebele | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
| Sepedi | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
| Sesotho | Niger-Congo | Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe |
| Setswana/Tswana | Niger-Congo | Botswana, South Africa |
| Seychelles Creole | French Creole | Seychelles |
| Shona | Niger-Congo | Zimbabwe |
| Sindebele | Niger-Congo | Zimbabwe |
| Somali | Afroasiatic | Somalia, Djibouti |
| Swahili | Niger-Congo | Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda |
| Swati | Niger-Congo | Eswatini, South Africa |
| Tigrinya | Afroasiatic | Eritrea, Tigray |
| Tsonga | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
| Venda | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
| Xhosa | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
| Zulu | Niger-Congo | South Africa |
Cross-border languages
The colonial borders established by European powers following the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 divided a great many ethnic groups and African language speaking communities. This can cause divergence of a language on either side of a border, for example, in orthographic standards. Some notable cross-border languages include Berber, Somali, Swahili, Fula and Luo.Some prominent Africans such as former Malian president and former Chairman of the African Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré, have referred to cross-border languages as a factor that can promote African unity.
Language change and planning
Language is not static in Africa any more than on other continents. In addition to the impact of borders, there are also cases of dialect levelling, koinés and emergence of new dialects. In some countries, there are official efforts to develop standardized language versions.There are also many less widely spoken languages that may be considered endangered languages.
Demographics
Of the 1 billion Africans, about 17 percent speak an Arabic dialect. About 10 percent speak Swahili, the lingua franca of Southeast Africa; about 5 percent speak a Berber dialect; and about 5 percent speak Hausa, which serves as a lingua franca in much of the Sahel. Other important West African languages are Yoruba, Igbo and Fula. Major Horn of Africa languages are Somali, Amharic and Oromo. Important South African languages are Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans.English, French and Portuguese are important languages in Africa. About 130 million, 115 million and 35 million Africans, respectively, speak them as either native or secondary languages. Portuguese has become the national language of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, and Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique. The economies of Angola and Mozambique are quickly becoming economic powerhouses in Africa. Through sheer demographic weight, Africans are increasingly taking ownership of these three world languages as they are having an ever-greater influence on the research, economic growth and development in the African countries where English, French and Portuguese are spoken.
Linguistic features
Some linguistic features are particularly common among languages spoken in Africa, whereas others are less common. Such shared traits probably are not due to a common origin of all African languages. Instead, some may be due to language contact and specific idioms and phrases may be due to a similar cultural background.Phonological
Some widespread phonetic features include:- certain types of consonants, such as implosives, ejectives, the labiodental flap and in southern Africa, clicks. True implosives are rare outside Africa, and clicks and the flap almost unheard of.
- doubly articulated labial-velar stops like and are found in places south of the Sahara.
- prenasalized consonants, like and, are widespread in Africa but not common outside it.
- sequences of stops and fricatives at the beginnings of words, such as, and.
- nasal stops which only occur with nasal vowels, such as vs. , especially in West Africa.
- vowels contrasting an advanced or retracted tongue, commonly called "tense" and "lax".
- simple tone systems which are used for grammatical purposes.
Tonal languages are found throughout the world but are predominantly used in Africa. Both the Nilo-Saharan and the Khoi-San phyla are fully tonal. The large majority of the Niger–Congo languages are also tonal. Tonal languages are also found in the Omotic, Chadic and South & East Cushitic branches of Afroasiatic. The most common type of tonal system opposes two tone levels, High and Low. Contour tones do occur, and can often be analysed as two or more tones in succession on a single syllable. Tone melodies play an important role, meaning that it is often possible to state significant generalizations by separating tone sequences from the segments that bear them. Tonal sandhi processes like tone spread, tone shift, downstep and downdrift are common in African languages.
Syntactic
Widespread syntactical structures include the common use of adjectival verbs and the expression of comparison by means of a verb 'to surpass'. The Niger–Congo languages have large numbers of genders which cause agreement in verbs and other words. Case, tense and other categories may be distinguished only by tone.Semantic
Quite often, only one term is used for both animal and meat; the word nama or nyama for animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages.Demographics
The following is a table displaying the number of speakers of given languages within Africa:By region
Below is a list of the major languages of Africa by region, family and total number of primary language speakers in millions.;North Africa
| ;Central Africa
| ;Eastern Africa
| ;Southern Africa
| ;West Africa
|