The Wonderful Language groups in Africa.
Bangoraogo n'ga go - The symphony of African rhythms resonates through these traditional wooden drums and percussion instruments, echoing the richness of oral traditions and musical heritage across the continent.
Africa is a large continent!
The African continent is linguistically diverse. In estimate, there are about 3000 languages spoken in Africa, from rare to very exotic languages like the East African Swahili. One-third of the world's languages are spoken in Africa.
Interestingly, some African languages are spoken both in the new and old world. A perfect example is the Nigerian Yoruba. It is common knowledge that Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa, but what is not common is that a language from Nigeria is spoken in some parts of Cuba and Brazil. It is also spoken in neighboring African countries like Benin Republic, parts of Togo, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia.
There are about 45 million Yoruba speakers with about 2 million second-language speakers. Yoruba language use in the New World is due to slave trading of the Yorubas from the 16th to the 19th century.
The languages of Africa can be broken into four large continental languages. These languages were not written previously, just spoken orally. These families include;
- Niger-Congo
- Nilo-Saharan
- Afroasiatic
- Khoisan
The Niger-Congo
The Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, and Swahili all belong to the Niger-Congo family of languages. Approximately 1650 languages are spoken in this group. This group is the largest language family in the world. These languages have spread across the globe with speakers migrating to different countries.
The Nilo-Saharan
About 80 languages are spoken in the Nilo-Saharan family. Speakers of these languages occupy Eastern Africa and the North Eastern region of Africa, namely: Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Chad, the Sudan, etcetera.
Afroasiatic
About 300 languages are spoken in the Afroasiatic family. Afroasiatic languages in Africa are found mainly in the Northern regions of Africa, including: northern Nigeria (Hausa), southern Niger, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and in the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etcetera.
The Khoisan languages
The Khoisan languages are languages that have clicks or produce a click sound. The Khoisan language speakers are found in the southern regions of Africa.
Clicks and sounds are incorporated into a portion of the consonants of the language. Speakers produce a distinctive popping sound that is created from the tongue or roof of the mouth. These sounds can be likened with those produced from kissing.
The Khoisan language is featured in Miriam Makeba's song, 'Qongqothwane'. The click language is also featured in the movie, "The gods must be crazy".
Other languages in southern Africa that have clicks include; Zulu and Xhosa. These languages have existed for more than 100 years.
African languages are widely overlooked. But they shouldn’t be, because they’re invaluable for travelers, professionals in the business world , and anyone with curiosity about the world, its languages and its cultures.