The languages of the continent of Africa; c.1300, spoken by c.400 million people. They are difficult to classify, because relatively few have been systematically described, and it is not always clear whether two varieties are separate languages or dialects of the same language. Few had written form before the Christian missionary activities of the 19th-c. Many of these languages do not have official status, but are subservient to the languages of colonialism, especially English and French. There are few with more than a million speakers. It is generally agreed, however, that there are four main families: Afro-Asiatic, NigerCongo, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan languages.
There are an estimated 1800 languages spoken in Africa. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of whose genetic classification has yet to be worked out. Several African languages are also whistled for special purposes.
The abundant linguistic diversity of many African countries has made language policy an extremely important issue in the neo-colonial era. Language policies that are being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. For example, all African languages are considered official languages of the African Union (AU). 2006 has been declared by AU as the "Year of African Languages".
Language families
Most African languages belong to one of four language families: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoisan. In addition, African languages include several unclassified languages, and also sign languages.
Afro-Asiatic
Formerly known as Hamito-Semitic languages, Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken in large parts of North Africa, East Africa, and Southwest Asia. The Afro-Asiatic language family comprises approximately 240 languages spoken by 285 million people. The main subfamilies of Afro-Asiatic are the Semitic languages, the Cushitic languages, Berber, and the Chadic languages. The Semitic languages are the only branch of Afro-Asiatic located outside of Africa.
Some of the most widely spoken Afro-Asiatic languages include Arabic (Semitic), Amharic (Semitic), Oromo (Cushitic), and Hausa (Chadic).
Nilo-Saharan
The Nilo-Saharan languages includes an array of diverse languages, a categorisation that is not entirely agreed upon. They mainly include languages spoken in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and northern Tanzania. Some languages in Central and West African are also classified as Nilo-Saharan. Nilo-Saharan languages are often sub-divided into Komuz languages, Saharan languages (including Kanuri language, Songhay languages, Fur languages (including Fur language), Maban languages, Central Sudanic languages, Kunama language, Berta language, Eastern Sudanic languages.
Eastern Sudanic languages are subdivided into Nubian languages and Nilotic languages. Nilotic languages include Eastern Nilotic languages, Southern Nilotic languages and Western Nilotic languages
Nilo-Saharan languages include an array of languages, including Luo languages in Sudan, Uganda,Kenya and Tanzania (eg. Most Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal.
The Kadu languages were formerly grouped with the Kordofanian languages, but are nowadays often considered part of the Nilo-Saharan family. The Nilotic languages, having expanded substantially with the Nilotic peoples in recent centuries, are a geographically widespread language family and have a large population.
Niger-Congo
The Niger-Congo language family is the largest group of Africa (and probably of the world) in terms of different languages. One of its salient features, still shared by most of the Niger-Congo languages, is the noun class system.
The Niger-Kordofanian language family, joining Niger-Congo with the Kordofanian languages of south-central Sudan, was proposed in 1950s by Joseph Greenberg.
Khoi-San
The Khoi-San languages number about 50, and are spoken by about 120,000 people.
A striking — and nearly unique — characteristic of the Khoi-San languages is their use of click consonants. Some neighbouring Bantu languages (notably Xhosa and Zulu) have adapted some "click" sounds from the Khoi-San languages, as has the Cushitic language Dahalo; but only a single language, the Australian ritual language Damin, is reported to use clicks without being a result of Khoi-San influence. Several African languages belong to non-African families: Malagasy, the most common language of Madagascar, is an Austronesian language, and Afrikaans is Indo-European, as is the lexifier of most African creoles. Since the colonial era, European languages like Portuguese, English and French (African French) are also found on the African continent, as are Indian languages such as Gujarati. Other Indo-European languages have also been heard in various parts of the continent in earlier historical times, such as Old Persian and Greek (in Egypt), Latin (in North Africa), and Modern Persian (in settlements along the Indian Ocean).
Creole languages
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 European languages (eg Krio from English in Sierra Leone and the very similar Pidgin in Cameroon and Nigeria, Upper Guinea Kriol from Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, Seychellois Creole from French in the Seychelles, or Mauritian Creole in Mauritius); some are based on local languages (eg Sango, the main language of the Central African Republic.)
Unclassified languages
A fair number of unclassified languages are reported in Africa;
Sign languages
See also: List of sign languages#AfricaMany African countries have national sign languages - such as Algerian Sign Language, Tunisian Sign Language, Ethiopian Sign Language - while other sign languages are restricted to small areas or single villages, eg Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana.
Language in Africa
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.
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 francae).
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, elected one language to be used in government and education. Language policies that are being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism.
Linguistic features
The one thing African languages have in common is the fact that they are spoken in Africa. Nevertheless, some linguistic features are cross-linguistically particularly common to languages spoken in Africa, whereas other features seem to be more uncommon. The hypothesis that shared traits like this would point to a common origin of all African languages is highly dubious. Phoneme types that are relatively uncommon in African languages include uvular consonants, diphthongs, and front rounded vowels. additionally, the word nama or nyama for animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages.
Tonal languages are found throughout the world; The large majority of the Niger-Congo languages is also tonal. Tonal sandhi processes like tone spread, tone shift, and downstep and downdrift are common in African languages.
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