What is the most widely spoken African language?
"Various estimates have been put forward and they vary widely, from 50 million to over 100 million. Swahili serves as a national language of four nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the DRC. Shikomor, the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte (), is related to Swahili. Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community. South Africa legalized the teaching of Swahili in South African schools as an optional subject beginning in 2020. A significant fraction of Swahili vocabulary derives from Arabic, in"
"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 (which may group up to a hundred linguistic varieties) are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language. Niger–Congo is the largest phylum of African languages, with more than 500 million speakers (2017); it is dominated by the Bantu branch, spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa in the Bantu expansion, Bantu speakers accounting for about half of Niger–Congo speakers. Arabic is the most"
"and that 'African' is an official language. In reality, African as a language does not exist. There are over 2000 distinct languages currently spoken throughout the African continent, the most common of these being Swahili. The belief that Africa is the epicenter of primitive culture and poverty is also a common generalization of the continent. While a number of countries in Africa are indeed impoverished, many countries in Africa have thriving and prosperous economies, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Africans are often perceived as having ""no access to modern technology"" throughout the developed world, however this is wildly inaccurate."
"widely spoken single language in Africa by far, with a population of Arab Africa of the order of 330 million (2017). Other Afroasiatic languages are spoken by of the order of 100 million speakers in Africa (2017). Nilo-Saharan are spoken by of the order of 100 million speakers (2017). Khoisan groups a number of mostly endangered click languages, the largest being Khoekhoe with of the order of 300,000 speakers (2016). Demographics of Africa The population of Africa has grown rapidly over the past century and consequently shows a large youth bulge, further reinforced by a low life expectancy of below"
"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 (which may group up to a hundred linguistic varieties) are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language. Although many"
"have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively. By most estimates, well over a thousand languages (UNESCO has estimated around two thousand) are spoken in Africa. Most are of African origin, though some are of European or Asian origin. Africa is the most multilingual continent in the world, and it is not rare for individuals to fluently speak not only multiple African languages, but one or more European ones as well. There are four major language families indigenous to Africa: Following the end of colonialism, nearly all African countries adopted official languages that originated"
"(including speakers from the Bantu branch) in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Nilo-Saharan in parts of the Sahara and the Sahel and parts of Eastern Africa, and Khoisan (indigenous minorities of Southern Africa). The continent of Africa speaks hundreds of languages, and if dialects spoken by various ethnic groups are also included, the number is much higher. These languages and dialects do not have the same importance: some are spoken by only few hundred people, others are spoken by millions. Among the most prominent languages spoken are Arabic, Swahili and Hausa. Very few countries of Africa use any single language and"
"African French African French () is the generic name of the varieties of a French language spoken by an estimated 120 million people in Africa spread across 24 francophone countries. This includes those who speak French as a first or second language in these 31 francophone African countries (dark blue on the map), but it does not include French speakers living in non-francophone African countries. Africa is thus the continent with the most French speakers in the world. French arrived in Africa as a colonial language. These African French speakers are now a large part of the Francophonie. In Africa,"
"Other important West African languages are Yoruba, Igbo and Fula. Major Horn of Africa languages are Amharic, Oromo and Somali. Important South African languages are Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans. English, French and Portuguese are important languages in Africa. About 130 million, 115 million and 30 million Africans, respectively, speak them as either native or secondary languages. Portuguese has become the national language of Angola, and Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique. The economies of Angola and Mozambique are quickly becoming economic powerhouses in Africa. Through (among other factors) sheer demographic weight, Africans are increasingly taking ownership of these three"
"in many countries and that the estimations of the study are greatly overstated. Out of 53 countries, Africa has 32 French-speaking countries, more than half; French was also the most widely spoken language in Africa in 2015. The Francophone zone of Africa is two times the size of the United States of America (including Alaska) French was introduced in Africa by France and Belgium during the colonial period. The process of francization continued after the colonial period, so that English-speaking countries like Ghana or Nigeria feel strong French influences from their French-speaking neighbors. French became the most spoken language in"
"and parts of the Sahel. The Afroasiatic homeland may be either in Western Asia or in Africa. More recently introduced to Africa are Austronesian languages spoken in Madagascar, as well as Indo-European languages spoken in South Africa and Namibia (Afrikaans, English, German), which were used as lingua francas in former European colonies. The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa 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 the count of SIL Ethnologue), Around a hundred"
"worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is mostly a second language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville, Gabon. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population"
"Afroasiatic languages Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian and in older sources as Hamito-Semitic (Chamito-Semitic) or Semito-Hamitic, is a large language family of about 300 languages. It includes languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel. Afroasiatic languages have over 495 million native speakers, the fourth largest number of any language family (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan and Niger–Congo). The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic and Semitic. By far the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum is Arabic. A de facto group of distinct language varieties within"
"Languages of Africa The languages of Africa are divided into six major language families: There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates (see below). The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa 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 the count of SIL Ethnologue), one of the greatest"
"to the larger Afro-Asiatic language family. Although Arabic is widely spoken by many people in the north and urban areas in the south, Somali is the most widely used language, and contains many Arabic loan words. Similarly, Djibouti has two official languages, Arabic and French. It also has several formally recognized national languages; besides Somali, many people speak Afar, which is also an Afro-Asiatic language. The majority of the population speaks Somali and Afar, although Arabic is also widely used for trade and other activities. Comoros has three official languages: Arabic, Comorian and French. Comorian is the most widely spoken"
"7 million native speakers in South Africa, or 13.5% of the population, it is the third-most-spoken language in the country. It has the widest geographical and racial distribution of all the 11 official languages of South Africa, and is widely spoken and understood as a second or third language. It is the majority language of the western half of South Africa—the provinces of the Northern Cape and Western Cape—and the first language of 75.8% of Coloured South Africans (4.8 million people), 60.8% of White South Africans (2.7 million); 4.6% of Asian South Africans (58,000 people), and 1.5% of Black South"
"Northern Ndebele, and other Nguni languages to a lesser extent. Nguni languages are, in turn, part of the much larger group of Bantu languages. Xhosa is the most widely distributed African language in South Africa, though the most widely spoken African language is Zulu. It is the second most common home language in South Africa as a whole. approximately 5.3 million Xhosa-speakers, the majority, live in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225). There is a"
"(Hollandic dialect) 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. 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."
"outside the continent, although several countries also granted legal recognition to indigenous languages (such as Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa). In numerous countries, English and French (""see African French"") are used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the media. Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Spanish are examples of languages that trace their origin to outside of Africa, and that are used by millions of Africans today, both in the public and private spheres. Italian is spoken by some in former Italian colonies in Africa. German is spoken in Namibia, as it was a former German"
"for animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages. The following 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. Languages of Africa The languages of Africa are divided into six major language families: There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates (see below). The"
"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 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. Besides the former colonial languages of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, the following"
"of Africa that are within the Arab world. South Semitic languages are also spoken in parts of the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea). The Chadic branch is distributed in Central and West Africa. Hausa, its most widely spoken language, serves as a lingua franca in West Africa (Niger, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, and Chad). The several families lumped under the term Khoi-San include languages indigenous to Southern Africa and Tanzania, though some, such as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current locations not long before the Bantu expansion. In Southern Africa, their speakers are the Khoikhoi and"
"an estimated 100,000 Europeans living in Tunisia, most are French with some Italians. Morocco has about 100,000 Europeans, most of them French with some Spanish. White Africans speak Indo-European languages as their first languages (Afrikaans, English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish and Italian). Afrikaans is the most common language spoken at home by white South Africans. It is spoken by roughly 60% of South Africa's, 60% of Namibia's, and about 5% of Zimbabwe's white population. In South Africa they make up a major white speaking group in all provinces except KwaZulu-Natal, where Afrikaans speakers (of all races) make up 1.5% of"
"The Languages of Africa The Languages of Africa is a 1963 book of essays by Joseph Greenberg, in which the author sets forth a genetic classification of African languages that, with some changes, continues to be the most commonly used one today. It is an expanded and extensively revised version of his 1955 work ""Studies in African Linguistic Classification"", which was itself a compilation of eight articles which Greenberg had published in the ""Southwestern Journal of Anthropology"" between 1949 and 1954. It was first published in 1963 as Part II of the ""International Journal of American Linguistics"", Vol. 29, No."
"Languages of the African Union The languages of the African Union are languages used by citizens within the member states of the African Union (AU). For languages of the institution, see African Union: Languages. The African Union has defined a number of languages as working languages including Arabic, English, French and Portuguese as well as African languages if possible. The prominence of Arabic in many African countries is due to the Arab expansion into Africa from the 7th century, with subsequent Arabization of local populations. Indo-European languages were introduced during the European colonisation from the 15th century. In 2001, the"
"the expense of another, and more often than not, the beneficiary is English, with the African languages being ignored. The distinction ""black"" and ""white"" literature is further a remnant of colonialism that should be replaced by drawing distinctions between literary systems based on language affiliation rather than race. Afrikaans is a Germanic language closely related to Dutch. It has its origins in the 17th century, but was only officially recognised in 1875 when the ""Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners"" was established. Afrikaans is spoken throughout South Africa, and is the mother tongue of both whites and coloureds (in the South African"
"Manding languages The Manding languages (sometimes spelt Manden) are mutually intelligible dialects or languages in West Africa of the Mande family. Their best-known members are Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Mandinka, the main language of Gambia; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of Guinea; and Dyula, a trade language of the northern Ivory Coast and western Burkina Faso. The Manding languages, and what distinguishes one from the rest and relationships among all of them are matters that continue to be researched. In addition, the nomenclature - being a mixture of indigenous terms and words applied by English"
"be used as the language of instruction for half the subjects taught in non-White schools (with English continuing for the other half). Although English is the mother tongue of only 8.2% of the population, it is the language most widely understood, and the second language of a majority of South Africans. Afrikaans is more widely spoken than English in the Northern and Western Cape provinces, several hundred kilometres from Soweto. The Black community's opposition to Afrikaans and preference for continuing English instruction was underlined when the government rescinded the policy one month after the uprising: 96% of Black schools chose"
"Africa, while the only significant territory off the mainland is the island of Madagascar (the world's fourth largest island), accounting for slightly less than 2% of the total. According to the Constitutive Act of the African Union, its working languages are Arabic, English, French and Portuguese, and African languages ""if possible"". A protocol amending the Constitutive Act, adopted in 2003 but as of June 2016 not yet ratified by a two-thirds majority of member states, would add Spanish, Swahili and ""any other African language"" and declare all ""official"" (rather than ""working"") languages of the African Union. The Executive Council shall"
"with Africa’s indigenous dialects - Afro-Asiatic, Kordofanian and Khoisan languages, many colonial languages are spoken today. For example, English is spoken in Ghana, Gambia and Kenya, French in Benin, Burkina-Faso and Cameroon, and Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe. Scholars including Dellal (2013), Miraftab (2012) and Bamgbose (2011) have argued that Africa’s linguistic diversity has been eroded. Language has been used by western colonial powers to divide territories and create new identities which has led to conflicts and tensions between African nations. Today, 93% of South Africa's land is still owned by ‘descendants of white settlers’ despite the"
"West Africa), 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 languages (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. 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 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."
"Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an official language of the African Union and is officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community. It is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Africa, is a compulsory subject in all Kenyan schools and is increasingly being used in eastern Burundi and northern Mozambique. With between 50 – 100 million speakers, Swahili is lexiconically similar to other eastern Bantu languages such as Comorian which have differing levels of mutual intelligibility. Swahili is already used unofficially in many UN organizations as the United Nations Office"