African languages
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In many African countries there are several official languages |
There are an estimated 1800 languages spoken in
Africa. Some
African languages, such as
Swahili,
Hausa, and
Yoruba, are spoken by millions of people. Others, such as
Laal,
Shabo, and
Dahalo, are spoken by a few hundred or fewer. 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. In recent years, African countries have become increasingly aware of the value of their linguistic inheritance. 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". [
1]
Most African languages belong to one of four
language families:
Afro-Asiatic,
Nilo-Saharan,
Niger-Congo, and
Khoisan. A handful of languages associated with the continent are
Indo-European or
Austronesian, however, their presence dates to less than 500 and 1000 years ago, respectively, and their closest linguistic relatives are primarily non-African. 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). Of all the world's surviving language families, Afro-Asiatic has the longest written history, since both
Ancient Egyptian and
Akkadian are members.
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. The family consists of more than a hundred languages. 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.
Acholi,
Lango,
Dholuo),
Ateker in
Uganda and
Kenya (eg.
Teso,
Karamojong and
Turkana),
Maasai (Kenya and Tanzania),
Kanuri (Nigeria) and
Songhay (Mali). 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 vast majority of languages of this family is
tonal.The
Bantu family comprises a major branch of Niger-Congo, as visualized by the distinction between Niger-Congo A and B (Bantu) on the map above.
The
Niger-Kordofanian language family, joining Niger-Congo with the
Kordofanian languages of south-central
Sudan, was proposed in 1950s by
Joseph Greenberg. It is common today for linguists to use "Niger-Congo" to refer to this entire family, including Kordofanian as a subfamily. One reason for this is that it is not clear whether Kordofanian was the first branch to diverge from rest of Niger-Congo.
Mandé has been claimed to be equally or more divergent.
Niger-Congo is generally accepted by linguists, though a few question the inclusion of Kordofanian or Mandé.
Khoi-San
The Khoi-San languages number about 50, and are spoken by about 120,000 people. They are found mainly in Namibia, Botswana, and Angola. Two distant languages usually considered Khoi-San are
Sandawe and
Hadza of Tanzania. Many linguists regard the Khoi-San phylum as a yet unproven hypothesis.
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. All of the Khoi-San languages are
tonal.
Non-African families
The above are families indigenous to Africa. 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 Arabic (eg
Juba Arabic in the southern
Sudan, or
Nubi in parts of
Uganda and
Kenya); 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; many remain unclassified simply for lack of data, but among the better-investigated ones may be listed:
* possibly Afro-Asiatic:
Ongota* possibly Nilo-Saharan:
Shabo* possibly Niger-Congo:
Laal and
Jalaa.
Less well investigated ones include
Bete,
Bung,
Kujarge,
Lufu,
Mpre,
Oropom, and
Weyto. Several of these are extinct, and adequate comparative data is thus unlikely to be forthcoming.
In addition, the placement of
Kadu,
Kordofanian,
Hadza, and
Sandawe - among others - is controversial, as discussed above.
Sign languages
Many 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. Little has been published on most of these languages.
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. A case in point is the
Bantu expansion, the process of Bantu-speaking peoples expanding over most of the sub-Saharan part of Africa, thereby displacing Khoi-San speaking peoples in much of East-Africa. Another example is the Islamic expansion in the 7th century AD, marking the start of a period of profound
Arabic influence in North Africa.
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). Of particular importance in this respect are
Fulfulde (West Africa),
Hausa (Nigeria, Niger),
Lingala (Congo),
Swahili (East Africa) and
Arabic (North Africa).
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, elected one language to be used in government and education. In recent years, African countries have become increasingly aware of the importance of linguistic diversity. Language policies that are being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism.
The one thing African languages have in common is the fact that they are spoken in Africa. Africa does not represent some sort of natural linguistic area. 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.
Language contact (resulting in borrowing) and, with regard to specific idioms and phrases, a similar cultural background have been put forward to account for some of the similarities.
Among common pan-African linguistic features are the following (Greenberg 1983): certain phoneme types, such as
implosives; doubly articluated
labial-velar stops like and ; initial
nasal consonant clusters;
clicks; and the lower high (or 'near close')
vowels and . Phoneme types that are relatively uncommon in African languages include
uvular consonants,
diphthongs, and front rounded vowels. Quite frequently, only one term is used for both animal and meat; additionally, the word
nama or
nyama for animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages. Widespread syntactical structures include the common use of adjectival verbs and the expression of comparison by means of a verb
to surpass.
Tonal languages are found throughout the world; in Africa, they are especially numerous. Both the Nilo-Saharan and the Khoi-San phyla are fully tonal. The large majority of the Niger-Congo languages is also tonal. Tonal languages are furthermore found in the Omotic, Chadic, and South & East Cushitic branches of Afro-Asiatic. The most common type of tonal system opposes two tone levels, High (H) and Low (L).
Contour tones do occur, and can often be analysed as two or more tones in succession on a single syllable.
Tone melodies play an important role, meaning that it is often possible to state significant generalizations by separating tone sequences ('melodies') from the segments that bear them.
Tonal sandhi processes like tone spread, tone shift, and downstep and downdrift are common in African languages.
*
Polyglotta Africana*
The Languages of Africa*
Joseph Greenberg*
Diedrich Hermann Westermann*
Malcolm Guthrie*
Wilhelm Bleek*
Karl Lepsius*
Carl MeinhofAfrican languages
*Childs, G. Tucker (2003)
An Introduction to African Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
*Heine, Bernd & Derek Nurse (eds.) (2000)
African languages: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Webb, Vic and Kembo-Sure (eds.) (1998)
African Voices. An introduction to the languages and linguistics of Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
*Greenberg, Joseph H. (1983) 'Some areal characteristics of African languages', in Dihoff, Ivan R. (ed.)
Current Approaches to African Linguistics (vol. 1) (Publications in African Languages and Linguistics vol. 1). Dordrecht: Foris, 3-21.
*Wedekind, Klaus (1985) 'Thoughts when drawing a map of tone languages'
Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 1, 105-24.
Language policies in Africa
* Ellis, Stephen (ed.) (1996)
Africa Now. People – Policies – Institutions. The Hague: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS).
* Chimhundu, Herbert (2002)
Language Policies in Africa. (Final report of the Intergovernmental conference on language policies in Africa) Revised version. UNESCO.
Classifications
*Cust, Robert Needham (1883)
Modern Languages of Africa.
*Greenberg, Joseph H. (1966)
The Languages of Africa (2nd ed. with additions and corrections). [Originally published as International journal of American linguistics, 29, 1, part 2 (1963)]. Bloomington: Indiana University.
* Westermann, Diedrich H. (1952).
The languages of West Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Ethnologue.com's
Africa: A listing of African languages and language families.
*
Web resources for African languages*
AfricanLanguages.com, information about Kiswahili, Tshiluba and South African languages
