What are the major language groups in Africa?
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.
How many language groups are there in Africa?
With anywhere between 1000 and 2000 languages, Africa is home to approximately one-third of the world’s languages. The diversity of Africa’s languages is evidenced by their populations. In total, there are at least 75 languages in Africa which have more than one million speakers.
What are the 4 major language groups in Africa?
The languages of Africa can be grouped into 6 major linguistic families. Each has a different history and geographic distribution on the continent. The four major families of AFRO-ASIATIC, NILO-SAHARAN, KHOISAN, and NIGER-CONGO are indicated on the map.
What are the three general groups of African languages?
Classification of African Languages
- Afro-Asiatic.
- Khosian.
- Niger-Congo.
- Nilo-Saharan.
What’s the most common language in Africa?
While Arabic is the most spoken language in Africa, there’s plenty more – other popular languages include Amharic, Berber, Portuguese, Oromo, Igbo, Yoruba, Zulu and Shona. And where did all this linguistic intermixing come in?
What is the most widely spoken language in Africa?
Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognised language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 million users.
What is the first language in Africa?
1. SWAHILI. The most spoken language in Africa is Swahili which is said to have between 100 and 150 million speakers.
What is the most common language in Africa?
What is the second most spoken language in Africa?
Branching out from the Bantu/Nguni family of languages, Zulu has more than 10 million speakers and is the second most widely spoken Bantu language (after Shona).
What was the first language in Africa?
It is the native language of the Bantu group known as the Swahili people. It is spoken in over ten African countries and has more than 100 million native speakers. Almost 20% of the vocabulary of Swahili consists of loanwords that have been taken from various tongues, including Arabic, Hindustani, and Persian.
How many ethnic groups are in Africa?
A Diverse Africa There are over 3,000 different ethnic groups speaking more than 2,100 different languages in all of Africa. The people there practice a variety of religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and traditional religions specific to their ethnic group.
How many Afroasiatic languages are there?
Afroasiatic languages. 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.
What languages are spoken in Africa?
Indo-European. Austronesian. The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families : Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages ( Bantu and non-Bantu, the inclusion of Mande and a few other groups is disputed) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa.
What is the lingua franca of West Africa?
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, Akan and Fula.
What are the best books on African linguistics?
In Ivan R. Dihoff (editor), Current Approaches to African Linguistics, Vol. 1 ( Publications in African Languages and Linguistics, Vol. 1), Dordrecht: Foris, 3-21. Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966). The Languages of Africa (2nd edition with additions and corrections).