Languages of Africa

Africa is a place with many different languages. Some people think there are between 1,250 and 2,100 languages spoken there, and others think there might even be over 3,000! One country, Nigeria, has more than 500 languages alone, which is one of the biggest numbers in the world.

The languages of Africa come from many different groups. The biggest groups include the Niger–Congo languages, which are spoken in West, Central, Southeast, and Southern Africa. There are also Afroasiatic languages in North Africa and parts of Western Asia. Other groups include Nilo-Saharan languages in East Africa and the Sahel, and Austronesian languages in Madagascar.

Many languages are used to help people talk to each other even if they speak different mother tongues. Languages like Arabic, Swahili, and English are used widely across the continent. Some of these languages are official languages of countries, but many countries also use languages from their former colonizers, like French or Portuguese, as official languages. In 2006, the African Union made that year the “Year of African Languages” to celebrate them.

Language groups

Most languages spoken at home in Africa belong to one of two big language families: Afroasiatic or Niger–Congo. About a hundred more belong to smaller families such as Ubangian, Nilotic, Saharan, and Khoisan. Africa also has some unclassified languages and sign languages.

Afroasiatic languages are spoken in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia, and parts of the Sahel. There are around 375 Afroasiatic languages spoken by over 400 million people. The main groups include Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian, and Semitic. Widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Arabic, Somali, Berber, Hausa, Amharic, and Oromo. Afroasiatic has the longest history of writing, with Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian as early examples.

Nilo-Saharan languages are a group of about one hundred languages that may be related. They stretch from the Nile Valley to northern Tanzania and into Nigeria and DR Congo. Well-known Nilo-Saharan languages include Kanuri, Fur, Songhay, Nobiin, and Nilotic languages like Luo, Dinka, and Maasai.

Niger–Congo languages are the largest family, mainly spoken in West Africa. They include an elaborate noun class system and many are tonal, like Yoruba, Igbo, Akan, and Ewe. A major branch is the Bantu phylum, which covers a wide area.

Other language families in Africa include Austronesian (like Malagasy in Madagascar), Indo-European (like Afrikaans in South Africa and Namibia), and several smaller families such as Mande, Ubangian, and Khoisan. Africa also has many creole languages, such as Krio in Sierra Leone and Sango in the Central African Republic. There are also several unclassified languages and many sign languages used across the continent.

Language in Africa

Africa has a rich history of many languages. Over time, languages have mixed and changed. One big example is the Bantu expansion, where Bantu-speaking people spread across much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Another example is the spread of Arabic after the Arab expansion in the 7th century, which brought Arabic to parts of North and East Africa.

Some languages became important for trade. These trade languages helped people from different areas communicate. Examples include Berber, Jula, Fulfulde, Hausa, Lingala, Swahili, and Arabic.

After many African countries gained independence, they chose one main language for government and schools, often a language from their former colonizers. But now, many countries are working to support all their languages. This makes it tricky to collect information because people sometimes switch between languages when talking.

Afroasiatic

• Berber (Amazigh):
  • Standard Moroccan Amazigh in Morocco
  • Standard Algerian Berber in Algeria
  • Tamasheq in Mali
  • Tawellemet in Mali
• Chadic:
  • Hausa in Niger
• 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, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia and Zanzibar (Tanzania)
    • Hassaniya Arabic in Mali
  • 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, Gambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Namibia, Seychelles, South Sudan, 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, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, and Togo.
• Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea.
• Spanish in Equatorial Guinea

Niger-Congo

• Bambara in Mali
• Bobo in Mali
• Bozo in Mali
• Chewa in Malawi and Zimbabwe
• Comorian in the Comoros
• Dogon in Mali
• Fula in Mali
• Kassonke in Mali
• Kongo in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Republic of the Congo
• Kinyarwanda in Rwanda
• Kirundi in Burundi
• Maninke in Mali
• Minyanka in Mali
• Senufo in Mali
• Sesotho in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe
• Setswana in Botswana and South Africa
• Shona, Sindebele in Zimbabwe
• Sepedi in South Africa
• Soninke in Mali
• Ndebele in South Africa
• 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

Linguistic features

Some language sounds and patterns are very common in African languages. For example, many African languages have special sounds like clicks and certain types of consonants that are rare in other parts of the world. These sounds might have developed because people in Africa shared similar cultures or borrowed sounds from each other.

African languages also often use tones — changes in how high or low a sound is made — to give meaning to words. This is much more common in Africa than in many other places. Words can change meaning just by changing the tone used to say them.

Demographics

The section shows the number of speakers of well-known languages in Africa.

By region

This part lists the main languages of Africa by area, language family, and the total number of people who speak each language as their first language, in millions.