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45-539: The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each ethnicity generally having their own language (or dialect of a language) and culture . The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic , Khoisan , Niger-Congo , and Nilo-Saharan populations. The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa is highly uncertain due to limited infrastructure to perform censuses, and due to rapid population growth. Some groups have alleged that there

90-618: 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 Barito languages especially

135-602: A factor that can promote African unity. Language is not static in Africa any more than on other continents. In addition to the (likely modest) impact of borders, there are also cases of dialect levelling (such as in Igbo and probably many others), koinés (such as N'Ko and possibly Runyakitara ) and emergence of new dialects (such as 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 . Of

180-455: A language on either side of a border (especially when the official languages are different), for example, in orthographic standards. Some notable cross-border languages include Berber (which stretches across much of North Africa and some parts of West Africa), Kikongo (that stretches across northern Angola, western and coastal Democratic Republic of the Congo, and western and coastal Republic of

225-433: A mixture of indigenous terms and words applied by English and French speakers since before the colonisation of Africa , which makes the picture complex and even confusing. The Mandinka people speak varieties from the first two groups. The differences between the western and eastern branches manifest themselves primarily phonetically . While dialects of the western group usually have 10 vowels (5 oral and 5 long/ nasal ),

270-618: A similar cultural background. Some widespread phonetic features include: Sounds that are relatively uncommon in African languages include uvular consonants , diphthongs and front rounded vowels Tonal languages are found throughout the world but are especially common in Africa - in fact, there are far more tonal than non-tonal languages in Africa. Both the Nilo-Saharan and the Khoi-San phyla are fully tonal. The large majority of

315-454: A wide variety of sign languages , many of which are language isolates. Around a hundred languages are widely used for interethnic communication. These include Arabic , Swahili , Amharic , Oromo , Igbo , Somali , Hausa , Manding , Fulani and Yoruba , which are spoken as a second (or non-first) language by millions of people. Although many African languages are used on the radio, in newspapers and in primary-school education, and some of

360-482: Is a list of language isolates and otherwise unclassified languages in Africa, from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:434): Many African countries have national sign languages, such as Algerian Sign Language , Tunisian Sign Language , 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

405-464: Is a table displaying the number of speakers of given languages within Africa: Below is a list of the major languages of Africa by region, family and total number of primary language speakers in millions. Manding languages The Manding languages, the differences from one another and relationships among them are matters that continue to be researched. In addition, the nomenclature is

450-478: Is a term of convenience covering some 30 languages spoken by around 300,000–400,000 people. There are five Khoisan families that have not been shown to be related to each other: Khoe , Tuu and Kx'a , which are found mainly in Namibia and Botswana , as well as Sandawe and Hadza of Tanzania , which are language isolates . A striking feature of Khoisan languages, and the reason they are often grouped together,

495-417: Is deliberate misreporting in order to give selected ethnicities numerical superiority (as in the case of Nigeria's Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo peoples). A 2009 genetic clustering study, which genotyped 1327 polymorphic markers in various African populations, identified six ancestral clusters. The clustering corresponded closely with ethnicity, culture, and language. A 2018 whole genome sequencing study of

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540-509: 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 . Several languages spoken in Africa belong to language families concentrated or originating outside the African continent. 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

585-476: Is important in Central Africa. Important South African languages are Sotho , Tswana , Pedi , Venda , Tsonga , Swazi , Southern Ndebele , Zulu , Xhosa and Afrikaans . French, English, and Portuguese are important languages in Africa due to colonialism. About 320 million, 240 million and 35 million Africans, respectively, speak them as either native or secondary languages. Portuguese has become

630-405: Is perhaps the most likely to be an isolate. Less-well investigated languages include Irimba , Luo , Mawa , Rer Bare (possibly Bantu languages), 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

675-908: 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 ( lingua franca ). Of particular importance in this respect are Berber (North and West Africa), Jula (western West Africa), Fulfulde (West Africa), Hausa (West Africa), Lingala (Congo), Swahili (Southeast Africa), Somali (Horn of Africa) and Arabic (North Africa and Horn of Africa). After gaining independence, many African countries, in

720-501: Is their use of click consonants . Some neighbouring Bantu languages (notably Xhosa and Zulu ) have clicks as well, but these were adopted from Khoisan languages. The Khoisan languages are also tonal . 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 (e.g. Krio from English in Sierra Leone and

765-432: Is thus unlikely to be forthcoming. Hombert & Philippson (2009) 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: Roger Blench notes a couple additional possibilities: Below

810-487: Is uncertain. The family's most extensive branch, the Semitic languages (including Arabic , Amharic and Hebrew among others), is the only branch of Afroasiatic that is spoken outside Africa. Some of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Arabic (a Semitic language, and a recent arrival from West Asia), Somali (Cushitic), Berber (Berber), Hausa (Chadic), Amharic (Semitic) and Oromo (Cushitic). Of

855-548: Is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect ) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SIL Ethnologue ), one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families , among which the largest are: 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

900-574: 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 . Most Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal , as are Niger-Congo languages. The Niger–Congo languages constitute the largest language family spoken in West Africa and perhaps the world in terms of

945-464: 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

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990-643: 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. Afrikaans is Indo-European , as is most of the vocabulary of most African creole languages . Afrikaans evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland ( Hollandic dialect ) spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa , where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in

1035-938: The Pygmy populations in Central Africa ; and the Khoisan populations in Southern Africa. As a first overview, the following table lists major groups by ethno-linguistic affiliation , with rough population estimates (as of 2016): The following is a table of major ethnic groups (10 million people or more): [REDACTED] Media related to Ethnic groups in Africa at Wikimedia Commons [REDACTED] Africa [REDACTED] Eurasia [REDACTED] North America [REDACTED] Oceania [REDACTED] South America Languages of Africa The number of languages natively spoken in Africa

1080-692: The Tanzanian Sign languages used in Tanzania . 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 , intermingling with Khoi-San speaking peoples from much of Southeast Africa and Southern Africa and other peoples from Central Africa . Another example

1125-489: The 1 billion Africans (in 2009), 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 large West African languages are Yoruba , Igbo , Akan and Fula . Major Horn of Africa languages are Somali , Amharic and Oromo . Lingala

1170-701: 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

1215-985: 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 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

1260-821: 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 culture . 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

1305-607: 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 (H) and Low (L). 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 ("melodies") from

1350-606: The branches must have undergone major restructuring since diverging from their common ancestor. This hypothetical family would reach an expanse 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. The inclusion of the Songhay languages is questionable, and doubts have been raised over

1395-562: The continent, such as Old Persian and Greek in Egypt, Latin and Vandalic in North Africa and Modern Persian in the Horn of Africa . 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 . Khoisan

List of ethnic groups of Africa - Misplaced Pages Continue

1440-538: The continent: Afroasiatic , or Niger–Congo . Another hundred belong to smaller families such as Ubangian , Nilotic , Saharan , and the various families previously grouped under the umbrella term Khoisan . In addition, the languages of Africa include several unclassified languages and sign languages . The earliest Afroasiatic languages are associated with the Capsian culture , the Saharan languages are linked with

1485-768: The course of the 18th century, including the loss of verbal conjugation (save for 5 modal verbs), as well as grammatical case and gender. 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 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 . ( See African French and African Portuguese .) Additionally, languages like French, and Portuguese have become native languages in various countries. French has become native in

1530-404: 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. 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. The following

1575-421: The larger ones are considered national languages , only a few are official at the national level. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most official languages at the national level tend to be colonial languages such as French, Portuguese, or English. The African Union declared 2006 the "Year of African Languages". Most languages natively spoken in Africa belong to one of the two large language families that dominate

1620-542: 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. 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: Of these, Jalaa

1665-433: The national language of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, and Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique. 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

1710-464: 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 , Akan 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 (see Niger–Congo B (Bantu) in the map above). The Niger–Kordofanian language family, joining Niger–Congo with

1755-664: 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

1800-538: The segments that bear them. Tonal sandhi processes like tone spread, tone shift, downstep and downdrift are common in African languages. 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;

1845-496: The survey. 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. 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

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1890-682: The urban areas of the DRC, and Gabon. 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

1935-743: 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 ,

1980-817: The world's populations observed similar clusters among the populations in Africa. At K=9, distinct ancestral components defined the Afroasiatic -speaking populations inhabiting North Africa and Northeast Africa ; the Nilo-Saharan -speaking populations in Northeast Africa and East Africa ; the Ari populations in Northeast Africa; the Niger-Congo -speaking populations in West-Central Africa, West Africa , East Africa, and Southern Africa ;

2025-540: 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 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. The languages share some unusual morphology , but if they are related, most of

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