Languages of Africa

The number of languages natively spoken in

• Atlantic-Congo and Bantu branches in West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa
  .
• Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel
  .
• Saharan, Nilotic and Central Sudanic languages (previously grouped under the hypothetical Nilo-Saharan macro-family), are present in East Africa and Sahel.
• Austronesian languages are spoken in Madagascar and parts of the Comoros.
• Khoe–Kwadi languages are spoken principally in Namibia and Botswana.
• La Réunion
  .

There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as creoles and languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates.

Around a hundred languages are widely used for interethnic communication. These include

The African Union declared 2006 the "Year of African Languages".^[7]

Language groups

Most languages natively spoken in Africa belong to one of the two large

The earliest Afroasiatic languages are associated with the Capsian culture, the Saharan languages are linked with the Khartoum Mesolithic/Neolithic cultures. 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.^[8]

Afroasiatic languages

Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed grouping of some one hundred diverse languages. Genealogical linkage between these languages has failed to be conclusively demonstrated, and support for the proposal is sparse among linguists.^[10][11] 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.

This hypothetical family would reach an expanse that stretches from the

Malagasy belongs to the Austronesian languages and is the westernmost branch of the family. It is the national and co-official language of Madagascar, and a Malagasy dialect 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

With more than 20 million speakers, Malagasy is one of the most widely spoken of the Austronesian languages.

Indo-European

Afrikaans is Indo-European, as is most of the vocabulary of most African creole languages. Afrikaans evolved from the Dutch vernacular^[12][13] of South Holland (Hollandic dialect)^[14][15] 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 (save for 5 modal verbs), as well as grammatical case and gender.^[16] Most Afrikaans speakers live in South Africa. In Namibia it is the lingua franca. Overall 15 to 20 million people are estimated to speak Afrikaans.

Since the

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. The classifications below follow Glottolog.

• 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
• Te-Ne-Omotic, some 20 languages, previously classified under Afro-Asiatic, spoken in Ethiopia
• Khoe-Kwadi, around 10 languages, the primary family of Khoisan languages of Namibia and Botswana
• Surmic, some 11 languages, previously classified within either Sudanic or Nilo-Saharan
• Kx'a
  , around five languages, with various dialects, spoken in Southern Africa
• South Omotic, around five languages; previously classified within Afro-Asiatic, spoken in Ethiopia
• Tuu, or Taa-ǃKwi, two surviving languages
• Hadza, an isolate of Tanzania
• Bangime, a likely isolate of Mali
• Jalaa, a likely isolate of Nigeria
• Sandawe, an isolate of Tanzania
• Laal, a possible isolate of Chad

.

Creole languages

Due partly to its multilingualism and its colonial past, a substantial proportion of the world's

Krio from English in Sierra Leone and the very similar Pidgin in Nigeria, Ghana and parts of Cameroon; Cape Verdean Creole in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau Creole in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, all from Portuguese; Seychellois Creole in the Seychelles and Mauritian Creole in Mauritius, both from French); some are based on Arabic (e.g. Juba Arabic in the southern Sudan, or Nubi in parts of Uganda and Kenya); some are based on local languages (e.g. Sango, the main language of the Central African Republic); while in Cameroon a creole based on French, English and local African languages known as Camfranglais

has started to become popular.

Unclassified languages

Further information: Category:Unclassified languages of Africa

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
• unknown:
  Mpre

Of these, Jalaa is perhaps the most likely to be an isolate.

Less-well investigated languages include

Rer Bare (possibly Bantu), Bete (evidently Jukunoid), Bung (unclear), Kujarge (evidently Chadic), Lufu (Jukunoid), Meroitic (possibly Afroasiatic), Oropom (possibly spurious) and Weyto (evidently Cushitic). Several of these are extinct, and adequate comparative data is thus unlikely to be forthcoming. Hombert & Philippson (2009)^[17] 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 (Tanzania) (South Cushitic
  ? contains non-Cushitic lexicon)
• Hassaniyya Arabic restructured on an Azêr (Soninke
  ) base
• Kara (Fer?) (Central African Republic)
• Oblo (Cameroon) (Adamawa? Extinct?)

Roger Blench notes a couple additional possibilities:

• Defaka (Nigeria)
• Dompo (Ghana)

Below is a list of language isolates and otherwise unclassified languages in Africa, from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:434):^[18]

Language	Country
Bangi Me	Mali
Bayot	Senegal
Dompo	Ghana
Ega	Ivory Coast
Gomba	Ethiopia
Gumuz	Ethiopia, Sudan
Hadza	Tanzania
Irimba	Gabon
Jalaa	Nigeria
Kujarge	Chad
Laal	Chad
Lufu	Nigeria
Luo	Cameroon
Mawa	Nigeria
Meyobe	Benin, Togo
Mimi of Decorse; Mimi of Nachtigal	Chad
Mpra	Ghana
Oblo	Cameroon
Ongota	Ethiopia
Oropom	Kenya, Uganda
Rer Bare	Ethiopia
Shabo	Ethiopia
Weyto	Ethiopia
Wutana	Nigeria
Yeni	Cameroon

Sign languages

See also: List of sign languages § Africa

Many African countries have national sign languages, such as

Ethiopian Sign Language. Other sign languages are restricted to small areas or single villages, such as Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana

. Tanzania has seven, one for each of its schools for the Deaf, all of which are discouraged. Not much is known, since little has been published on these languages

Sign language systems extant in Africa include the

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

Arabic

from its homeland in Asia, into much of North Africa and the Horn of Africa.

Arabic

(North Africa and Horn of Africa).

After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former Indo-European 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. This presents a methodological complication when collecting data in Africa and limited literature exists. An analysis of Afrobarometer public opinion survey data of 36 countries suggested that survey interviewers and respondents could engage in various linguistic behaviors, such as code-switching during the survey.^[19] Moreover, some African countries have been considering removing their official former Indo-European colonial languages, like Mali and Burkina Faso which removed French as an official language in 2024.^[20][21]

Official languages

See also:

Languages of the African Union

Afroasiatic

• Berber:
  • Berber in Morocco and Algeria^[22]
  • Tamasheq in Mali^[23]
  • Tawellemet in Mali^[23]
• Cushitic:
  • Afar in Ethiopia
  • Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya
  • Somali in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti
• Semitic:
  • Amharic in Ethiopia
  • Arabic in Algeria, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania,^[24] Morocco, Somalia,^[25] Sudan, Tunisia and Zanzibar (Tanzania)
  • Hassaniya Arabic in Mali^[23]
  • Tigrinya in Ethiopia and Eritrea

Austronesian

• Malagasy in Madagascar

Ngbandi creole

• Sango in the Central African Republic

French Creole

• Seychelles Creole in Seychelles

Indo-European

• Afrikaans in South Africa
• English in Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Namibia, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Mauritius.
• French in Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, and Togo.^[26]
• Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea.^[27]
• Spanish in Equatorial Guinea^[28]

Niger-Congo

• Bambara in Mali^[23]
• Bobo in Mali^[23]
• Bozo in Mali^[23]
• Chewa in Malawi and Zimbabwe
• Comorian in the Comoros
• Dogon in Mali^[23]
• Fula in Mali^[23]
• Kassonke in Mali^[23]
• Kongo in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Republic of the Congo
• Kinyarwanda in Rwanda
• Kirundi in Burundi
• Maninke in Mali^[23]
• Minyanka in Mali^[23]
• Senufo in Mali^[23]
• Sesotho in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe
• Setswana in Botswana and South Africa
• Shona, Sindebele in Zimbabwe
• Sepedi
  in South Africa
• Soninke in Mali^[23]
• Ndebele in South Africa^[29]
• Swahili in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda
• Swati in Eswatini (Swaziland) and South Africa
• Tsonga
  in South Africa
• Venda
  in South Africa
• Xhosa in South Africa
• Zulu in South Africa

Nilo-Saharan

• Songhay in Mali^[23]

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, Libya
Chewa	Niger-Congo	Malawi, Zimbabwe
Comorian	Niger-Congo	Comoros
Kikongo	Niger-Congo	Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo
Kinyarwanda	Niger-Congo	Rwanda
Kirundi	Niger-Congo	Burundi
Malagasy	Austronesian	Madagascar
Ndebele	Niger-Congo	South Africa
Oromo	Afroasiatic	Ethiopia[30][31][32]
Sango	French Creole	Central African Republic
Sepedi	Niger-Congo	South Africa
Sesotho	Niger-Congo	Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Setswana	Niger-Congo	Botswana, South Africa
Seychelles Creole	French Creole	Seychelles
Shona	Niger-Congo	Zimbabwe
Sindebele	Niger-Congo	Zimbabwe
Somali	Afroasiatic	Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya
Swahili	Niger-Congo	Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
Swati	Niger-Congo	Eswatini, South Africa
Tigrinya	Afroasiatic	Ethiopia, Eritrea
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

Kikongo (that stretches across northern Angola, western and coastal Democratic Republic of the Congo, and western and coastal Republic of the Congo), Somali (stretches across most of the Horn of Africa), Swahili (spoken in the African Great Lakes region), Fula (in the Sahel and West Africa) and Luo

(in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan).

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.^[33]

Language change and planning

Language is not static in Africa any more than on other continents.^[

Sheng). 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

Further information: Demographics of Africa

Of the 1 billion Africans (in 2009), about 17 percent speak an

Pedi, Venda, Tsonga, Swazi, Southern Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans.^[34]

French, English and Portuguese are important languages in Africa. About 320 million,[35]^[36] 240 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.^[37]

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 (resulting in borrowing) 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
  labiodental flap and in southern Africa, clicks
  (/ǂa/, /ᵑǃa/). True implosives are rare outside Africa, and clicks and the flap almost unheard of.
• doubly articulated
  labial-velar stops
  like /k͡pa/ and /ɡ͡ba/ are found in places south of the Sahara.
• prenasalized consonants, like /mpa/ and /ŋɡa/, are widespread in Africa but not common outside it.
• sequences of stops and fricatives at the beginnings of words, such as /fsa/, /pta/ and /dt͡sk͡xʼa/.
• nasal stops which only occur with nasal vowels, such as [ba] vs. [mã] (but both [pa] and [pã]), 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.

Sounds that are relatively uncommon in African languages include uvular consonants, diphthongs and front rounded vowels

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 (noun classes) which cause agreement in verbs and other words. Case, tense and other categories may be distinguished only by tone. Auxiliary verbs are also widespread among African languages; the fusing of subject markers and TAM/polarity auxiliaries into what are known as tense pronouns are more common in auxiliary verb constructions in African languages than in most other parts of the world.^[38]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Demographics

The following is a table displaying the number of speakers of given languages within Africa:

Language	Family	Native speakers (L1)	Official status per country
Abron	Niger–Congo	1,393,000[39]	Ghana
Afar	Afroasiatic	2,500,000	Spoken in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia
Afrikaans	Indo-European	7,200,000[40]	National language in Namibia, co-official in South Africa
Akan	Niger–Congo	11,000,000[41]	None. Government sponsored language of Ghana
Amharic	Afroasiatic	32,400,000[42]	Ethiopia
Arabic	Afroasiatic	150,000,000[43] but with separate mutually unintelligible varieties	Algeria, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tunisia
Berber	Afroasiatic	16,000,000[44] (estimated) (including separate mutually unintelligible varieties)	Morocco, Algeria
Bhojpuri	Indo-European	65,300[45]	Spoken in Mauritius
Cape Verdean Creole	Portuguese Creole	871,000	National language in Cape Verde
Chewa	Niger–Congo	9,700,000[46]	Malawi, Zimbabwe
Comorian	Niger–Congo	1,100,000	Comoros
Dangme	Niger–Congo	1,020,000[47]	Ghana
English	Indo-European	6,500,000[48] (estimated)	See List of countries and territories where English is an official language
Fon	Niger–Congo	2,300,000	Benin
French	Indo-European	1,200,000[49] (estimated)	See List of territorial entities where French is an official language and African French
Fulani	Niger–Congo	25,000,000[41]	National language of Senegal
Ga	Niger–Congo	745,000	Ghana
German	Indo-European		National language of Namibia, special status in South Africa
Gikuyu	Niger–Congo	8,100,000[50]	Spoken in Kenya
Hausa	Afroasiatic	48,637,300[51]	Recognized in Nigeria, Ghana, Niger
Hindi	Indo-European		Spoken in Mauritius
Igbo	Niger–Congo	27,000,000[52]	Native in Nigeria
Italian	Indo-European		Recognized in Eritrea and Somalia
Kalenjin	Nilo-Saharan	6,600,000	Spoken in Kenya and Uganda
Khoekhoe	Khoe	200,000[53]	National language of Namibia
Kimbundu	Niger–Congo	1,700,000	Angola
Kinyarwanda	Niger–Congo	9,800,000[41]	Rwanda
Kirundi	Niger–Congo	8,800,000[41]	Burundi
Kituba	Kongo-based creole	5,400,000	Republic of Congo
Kongo	Niger–Congo	5,600,000[54]	Democratic Republic of Congo
Lingala	Niger–Congo	5,500,000[41]	National language of Republic of Congo
Luganda	Niger–Congo	4,100,000[55]	Native language of Uganda
Luhya	Niger–Congo	6,800,000[56]	Spoken in Kenya
Luo	Nilo-Saharan (probable)	5,000,000[57]	Kenya, Tanzania
Malagasy	Austronesian	18,000,000[58]	Madagascar
Mauritian Creole	French Creole	1,100,000[59]	Native language of Mauritius
Mossi	Niger–Congo	7,600,000[41]	Recognised regional language in Burkina Faso
Nambya	Niger–Congo	100,000	Zimbabwe
Ndau	Niger–Congo	2,400,000	Zimbabwe
Ndebele	Niger–Congo	1,100,000[60]	Statutory national language in South Africa
Noon	Niger–Congo	33,000	Senegal
Northern Ndebele	Niger–Congo	2,600,000	Zimbabwe
Northern Sotho	Niger–Congo	4,600,000[61]	South Africa
Oromo	Afroasiatic	37,071,900 (2020) [62]	Ethiopia
Portuguese	Indo-European	17,000,000[63]	Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe
Sena	Niger–Congo	2,869,000	Zimbabwe
Sepedi	Niger–Congo	4,700,000	South Africa
Sesotho	Niger–Congo	5,600,000[64]	Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Seychellois Creole	French Creole	73,000	Seychelles
Shona	Niger–Congo	7,200,000[65]	Zimbabwe
Somali	Afroasiatic	21,937,940[66]	Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya
Spanish	Indo-European	1,100,000[67]	Equatorial Guinea, Spain (Ceuta, Melilla, Canary Islands), still marginally spoken in Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, recognized in Morocco
Southern Ndebele	Niger–Congo	1,100,000	South Africa
Swahili	Niger–Congo	50,000,000[68]	Official in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Swazi	Niger–Congo	2,300,000	Official in Swaziland
Tamil	Dravidian		Spoken in Mauritius
Telugu	Dravidian		Spoken in Mauritius
Tigrinya	Afroasiatic	7,000,000[69]	Eritrea, regional language in Ethiopia
Tonga	Niger–Congo	1,500,000	Zimbabwe
Tsonga	Niger–Congo	3,700,000	Zimbabwe
Twi	Niger–Congo	630,000	Regional language in Ghana
Tshiluba	Niger–Congo	6,300,000[70] (1991)	National language of Democratic Republic of the Congo
Tsonga	Niger–Congo	5,000,000[71]	South Africa, Zimbabwe (as 'as Shangani'), Mozambique
Tshivenda	Niger–Congo	1,300,000	South Africa, Zimbabwe
Tswana	Niger–Congo	5,800,000[72]	Botswana, South Africa, spoken in Zimbabwe
Umbundu	Niger–Congo	6,000,000[73]	Angola
Venda	Niger–Congo	1,300,000[74]	South Africa, Zimbabwe
Wolof	Niger–Congo	5,454,000[75]	Lingua franca in Senegal
Xhosa	Niger–Congo	7,600,000[41]	South Africa, Zimbabwe
Yoruba	Niger–Congo	28,000,000[41]	Nigeria, Benin, Togo
Zulu	Niger–Congo	10,400,000[41]	South 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 Afroasiatic Semitic Arabic: 200 Berber: 30–40 Kabyle Atlas Tuareg Zenaga Nilo-Saharan Nubian: 5+[76] Fur: 5+[77][78][79] Zaghawa[80] Masalit Niger–Congo Kordofanian languages Nuba[81]

Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu Lingala[82] Kinyarwanda:12[83] Kongo:5+[82][84][85] Tshiluba[82] Kirundi[86]

Eastern Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu: Swahili: 5–10 Gikuyu: 8+[87] Ganda:6[88] Luhya: 6+[87] Austronesian Malagasy: 20+[58] Niger–Congo, Ubangian Gbaya:2[89] Banda:1–2[89] Zande[90] Nilo-Saharan Kanuri:10[91][41][92] Luo:5+[87][88] Sara:3–4[92][89] Kalenjin:6+[87] Dinka[90] Nuer[90] Shilluk[90] Maasai:1–2[93][94] Afroasiatic Semitic Amharic: 20+ Tigrinya: 5 Cushitic Somali: 10–15 Oromo: 30–35 Nilo-Saharan: 1[95][96] Gumuz Anuak Kunama Nara Niger–Congo: 1[97][98] Zigula

Southern Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu Zulu: 10[99] Xhosa: 8[99] Chokwe[100] Shona: 7 Sotho: 5 Tsonga: 12 Tswana: 4[99][101] Umbundu: 4[84] Sepedi: 4[99] Chichewa: 8[102][103] Makua: 8[104] Indo-European Germanic Afrikaans: 7 English: 5 Romance Portuguese: 14

West Africa Niger–Congo Benue–Congo Ibibio (Nigeria): 7[91] Volta–Niger Igbo (Nigeria): 30–35[91] Yoruba: 40[91] Kwa: Akan (Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire): 11 Gur More : 5 Senegambian Fula (West Africa): 40[91][41][105][106][107] Wolof: 8[105][106] Afroasiatic Chadic Hausa: 50[91][41] Nilo-Saharan Saharan Kanuri: 10[41][92] Songhai:5[41][108] Zarma:5[41][108]

See also

General

• Writing systems of Africa
• Journal of West African Languages
• List of extinct languages of Africa

Works

• Polyglotta Africana
• The Languages of Africa

Classifiers

• Karl Lepsius
• Lionel Bender
• Wilhelm Bleek
• Christopher Ehret
• Carl Meinhof
• Diedrich Westermann
• Joseph Greenberg

Colonial and migratory influences

• Arabization
• Asian Africans
• Dutch Language Union
• French West Africa
• German colonization of Africa
• Islamization of Egypt
• Italian East Africa — including Italian Ethiopia
• Italian North Africa
• North African Arabs
• Maghrebi Arabic — via Muslim conquest of the Maghreb
• Portuguese language in Africa — predominant in Portuguese-speaking African countries
• Spanish Guinea — presently Equatorial Guinea
• Spanish West Africa
• Spanish North Africa
• West African Pidgin English
• White Africans of European ancestry

Notes

1. ^ Heine & Nurse (2000)
2. ISBN 0-86543-534-0
   . Retrieved 23 June 2011. Africa is incredibly rich in language—over 3,000 indigenous languages by some counts, and many creoles, pidgins, and lingua francas.
3. ^ "Ethnologue report for Nigeria". Ethnologue Languages of the World.
4. ^ Oluwole, Victor (12 September 2021). "A comprehensive list of all the English-speaking countries in Africa". Business Insider Africa. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
5. ^ Stein-Smith, Kathleen (17 March 2022). "Africa and the French language are growing together in global importance". The Conversation. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
6. ^ Yates, Y. "How Many People Speak Portuguese, And Where Is It Spoken?". Babbel Magazine. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
7. ^ "African Union Summit 2006: Khartoum, Sudan". Southern African Regional Poverty Network. Archived from the original on 30 May 2006.
8. JSTOR 414395
   . Retrieved 31 January 2017.
9. ISBN 0-521-66629-5
   . Retrieved 12 March 2018.
10. ISBN 9780874808926
    .
11. ISBN 9780199675128
    .
12. ISBN 9781433105012
    .
13. OL 5361614M
    .
14. ^ Kloeke, G.G. (1950). Herkomst en groei van het Afrikaans (PDF). Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
15. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.222.5044
    .
16. ^ Coetzee, Abel (1948). Standaard Afrikaans (PDF). Afrikaner Pers. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
17. ^ Hombert, Jean-Marie; Philippson, Gérard (2009). "The linguistic importance of language isolates: the African case". In Austin, Peter K.; Bond, Oliver; Charette, Monik; Nathan, David; Sells, Peter (eds.). Proceedings of Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory 2 (PDF). London: SOAS. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 May 2013.
18. ^ Vossen, Rainer; Dimmendaal, Gerrit J., eds. (2020). The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 392–407.
19. ISBN 978-1-934831-24-3
    .
20. ^ AfricaNews. "Mali drops French as official language". Africanews. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
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References

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External links

• one of the largest online resources for African languages at Mofeko
• African language resources for children Archived 3 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• Web resources for African languages
• Linguistic maps of Africa from Muturzikin.com
• Online Dictionaries, e-books and other online fulltexts in or on African languages