Africa’s beauty is too diverse to be limited. The languages, cultures, cuisine, and arts of Africa widely vary and are full of color, beauty, and history. Some of the most popular African languages are ranked as the most spoken language globally.
Over 2000 African languages are thought to exist, this accounts for one-third of all languages spoken worldwide. The population of Africa provides evidence of the diversity of its languages.
There are about one million native speakers of at least 75 different languages in Africa.
Isn’t it incredible that some countries, like Nigeria, have over 500 different language groups spoken by millions of people?
African languages in the 21st century
African languages have advanced to incredible heights in recent years. The rise and acknowledgements of Afrobeats — Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Casper Nyovest — African honoraries — Wole Soyinka, Chiamanda Adichie, Kumi Nadoo — and African startups like Paystack, Chipper Cash solving global problems, have propelled the language to go beyond the continent’s borders and even into foreign universities and schools.
Some notable foreign universities that take African language programs include University of Florida, Harvard and University of Ohio.
However, due to some African languages lacking in having a writing form and being heavily reliant on oral methods, most of them have as a result become endangered.
Language families
African languages can be divided into “families,” which indicates that they had a similar progenitor. We’ll focus on these five:
- Afroasiatic languages: These languages includes Arabic, Somali, Berber, Hausa, Amharic, and Oromo. These languages are spoken in portions of the Sahel (where the Sahara becomes savanna), the Horn of Africa, and North Africa.
- Austronesian languages: These include Malagasy, which is Madagascar’s official language, under this category. Malagasy has more than 20 million speakers while being somewhat isolated from other African languages.
- Indo-European languages: Examples of these languages are Afrikaans, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. With the exception of Afrikaans, these languages are largely used for business and official reasons as second or third languages.
- Niger-Congo languages: These include Shona, Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, and Swahili. With more than 1,500 different languages, some linguists believe this to be the largest language family in the world.
- Nilo Saharan language: These include the Luo, Songhay, Nubian, and Maasai. In Tanzania, Sudan, Chad and Mali, these languages are widely spoken.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at twelve of the most popular African languages. Note our criteria for grading are African languages originated in the country not from other continents.
1. Swahili
Number of speakers: 18 million native speakers, over 200 million speakers in total.
Swahili is one of the most popular African languages. It has a lot to offer language learners because of its many speakers and extensive history.
Other languages have not been able to achieve the accomplishment of maintaining a language’s core from the early commerce era to the twenty-first century as Swahili has. Swahili came as a result to promote trade between various populations in Southern and Eastern Africa.
Interesting fact: Swahili has roots in Arabic.
2. Hausa
Number of speakers in Africa: 50 million native speakers, over 100 million total.
More than 50 million Africans speak Hausa as their mother tongue. It is one of Nigeria’s official languages and a member of the Chadic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. In addition to Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Togo, Ghana, and Chad also speak Hausa.
Due to the language’s importance in trade, commerce, and business across Nigeria and the West African region, Hausa is among the languages that are most widely spoken in Africa. Due to the vast amount of literature it has, it is one of the few African languages that is taught in international universities.
Interesting fact: The only Nigerian language that is broadcast by foreign stations is the Hausa language.
3. Yoruba
Number of speakers: There are 45 million Yoruba native speakers, over 50 million in total.
Yoruba is one of the most widely spoken languages in West Africa, with about 45 million native speakers living in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo collectively. There are more than 15 varieties of this African language, including those from Ekiti, Ijebu, Oworo, Ijesha, and Akoko.
Interesting fact: The Yoruba Ethnic Group, one of the biggest African ethnic groupings in the region, is related to the name Yoruba.
4. Oromo
Native speakers: estimated 30 million native speakers.
Over 30 million people speak Oromo, a descendant of the Cushitic language. Mainly spoken in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt, Oromo has a sizeable speaker population.
Oromo people are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, and they make up more than 40% of the country’s total population.
Unbelievably, from 1974 to 1991, the Oromos people were prohibited from writing their language.
In actuality, it was regarded as a crime. However, Oromo academics later embraced the Latin alphabet, which was then used in the teaching of reading and writing.
Interesting fact: The Oromo language is referred to as Afaan Oromoo.
5. Igbo
Number of speakers: 30 million dialect speakers.
In addition to Nigeria, IGBO is spoken in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
There are around 20 distinct dialects of this widely used African language, including Owerri, Eche, and, of course, Central Igbo, which is spoken by 30 million people.
Since English is the primary literary language taught in Nigerian schools, the majority of Igbo speakers are said to be bilingual in the language.
Chinua Achebe, author of “Things Fall Apart”, who wrote most of his books in IGBO, gave prominence to the IGBO language due to this.
6. ZULU
Number of speakers: 12 million native speakers.
Zulu is one of the most extensively used languages in South Africa, with an estimated 12 million speakers. Zulu is closely connected to Xhosa and Ndebele and other languages that belong to the Bantu language family.
In fact, because Zulu and Xhosa have so many dialects, many people believe they are speaking the same language.
Interesting fact: The largest ethnic group in South Africa is called “Zulu,” which is also a language.
7. SHONA
Number of speakers: 10 million people.
Over 10 million people in Africa speak Shona. It is most commonly spoken in Zimbabwe together with English.
The three significant dialects of Karanga, Zezuru, and Korekore dialects of Shona are the three significant d. Shona is a member of the Bantu and Nguni language family and employs the Latin writing system.
Interesting fact: There are two distinct versions of Shona, each used for particular purposes. The “high” variety is used for praying, while the “low” variety is used in more informal settings like the house.
8. ARABIC
Number of speakers: 100 million in Africa, total 280 million.
Arabic is a language that is spoken by 280 million people globally and is also widely used in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Tunisia, and Eritrea.
The majority of Arabic speakers use Modern Standard Arabic as their primary language of communication.
The media and books employ this dialect, which is the one that is used to write the language. On the other hand, academic Arabic is mostly taught using classical Arabic.
Interesting fact: One of the six most spoken languages in the world is Arabic.
9. Amharic
Number of speakers: 32 million speakers in Africa.
With approximately 20 million native speakers, Amharic is one of the most widely spoken languages in Ethiopia. It is regarded as the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic. These languages, along with Hebrew, Tigrinya, and others, have their origins in the Middle East. The extremely distinctive Ge’ez writing system known as “fidel” is used to write Amharic.
Interesting fact: Addis Ababa, the name of Ethiopia’s capital, means “fresh blossom” in Amharic.
10. French
Number of speakers: 120 million speakers in Africa, total 300 million speakers.
“Francophone Africa” is made up of 26 African countries. On this continent, the top French-speaking nations are Gabon, Mauritius, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Sao Tome and Principe.
In addition to these, French is also spoken in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in North Africa. Over 120 million individuals in Africa speak French as a language of communication.
Interesting fact: By 2050, there will be over 700 million French speakers worldwide, with 80% of them living in Africa.
11. PORTUGUESE
Number of speakers: 14 million people in Africa, total 200 million speakers.
Six African nations use Portuguese as their official language. These nations are collectively referred to as “Lusophone Africa” and consist of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome & Principe, and Equatorial Guinea.
Approximately 14 million people on this continent speak Portuguese as a first language, while an estimated 30 million people speak it as a second language.
Interesting fact: The official working languages of the Southern African Development Community and the African Union are Portuguese.
12. English
Number of speakers in Africa: 6.5 million native speakers, 130 million speakers total.
Even in the absence of the British Empire, English is now a widely used official language for business, government, and education in many former British territories. Others, like Rwanda, were not British colonies, but they encouraged their people to learn English so they could connect with other nations.
The level of language competence can change, though. Even though English may be an official language, less than 1% of people can speak it in some nations.
English is the primary language of 23 African nations, including Zimbabwe, Botswana, Burundi, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
With 75 million speakers, West African Pidgin English is also widely spoken across the continent. Although the BBC just created a written standard, it was regarded as a creole language without a conventional written form.
