T HE E NGLISH A FRICA

A FRICA

L ANGUAGE IN A FRICA There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. [1] The American linguist Joseph Greenberg classified all African languages in six major linguistic families: languages Africa [1]Joseph Greenberglinguistic families Southwest AsiaSouthwest Asia (accepted) Nilo-SaharanNilo-Saharan is centered on Sudan and Chad (questionable)SudanChad Niger-CongoNiger-Congo covers West, Central, and Southeast Africa (accepted)WestCentralSoutheast Africa KhoeKhoe is concentrated in the deserts of Namibia and Botswana (not generally accepted)Namibia Botswana AustronesianAustronesian on Madagascar.Madagascar Indo-EuropeanIndo-European on the Southern tip of the continent.

L ANGUAGE IN AFRICA

A USTRONESIAN AND I NDO -E UROPEAN Several languages spoken in Africa belong to language families concentrated or originating outside of the African continent: Malagasy, the language of Madagascar, is an Austronesian language. Afrikaans is Indo-European, as are the lexifiers of most African creoles (Afrikaans is the only Indo-European language developed in Africa from the colonial era).Malagasy MadagascarAustronesianAfrikaans Indo-European creoles Since the colonial era, Indo-European languages such as Afrikaans, English, French and Portuguese have held official status in many countries, and are widely spoken, generally as lingua francas. ( See African French and African Portuguese.) 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 the continent, such as Old Persian and Greek in Egypt, Latin in North Africa, and Modern Persian in the Horn of Africa. AfrikaansEnglishFrenchPortugueselingua francasAfrican French African PortugueseIndian languagesGujaratiSouth Asian Old PersianGreekLatinModern PersianHorn of Africa

O FFICIAL LANGUAGES Besides the former colonial languages of English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, only a few languages are official at the national level. These are: ArabicArabic, in Algeria, Comoros, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mauritania, [4] Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, and TunisiaAlgeriaComorosChadDjiboutiEgypt EritreaLibyaMauritania [4]MoroccoSomalia SudanTunisia SwahiliSwahili in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and RwandaTanzaniaKenyaUgandaBurundi Rwanda ChichewaChichewa in MalawiMalawi AmharicAmharic in EthiopiaEthiopia SomaliSomali in SomaliaSomalia TigrinyaTigrinya in Eritrea (technically a working language)Eritreaworking language sh. [5] [5]

KinyarwandaKinyarwanda in Rwanda and the closely related Kirundi in BurundiRwanda KirundiBurundi SangoSango in the CARCAR SwaziSwazi in Swaziland and South AfricaSwazilandSouth Africa MalagasyMalagasy in MadagascarMadagascar Seychellois CreoleSeychellois Creole in the SeychellesSeychelles ShonaShona in ZimbabweZimbabwe AfrikaansAfrikaans, Ndebele, Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Sotho, Tswana, Swazi, Venda, and Tsonga in South Africa, the only multilingual country with widespread official status for its indigenous languages, in addition to EngliNdebeleXhosaZuluPediSotho TswanaSwaziVendaTsongaSouth Africa

L ANGUAGE IN AFRICA