What Languages Are Spoken In Africa? (Revealed!)

Africa is home to a third of the world’s languages, with up to two thousand native languages spoken across the continent. Most of those fall into six language families: Afroasiatic, Austronesian, Indo-European, Khoisan, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan. Beyond these native languages, many African countries also have unique native languages specific to indigenous people.

As the second-largest continent in the world in both land mass and population, Africa is certainly rich in culture and language.

Many of its 54 UN-recognized nations have endangered languages often only spoken by a small group of natives.

There are at least 75 major languages in Africa with over one million speakers each.

As peoples migrated around Africa as well as invaded and conquered nations, language spread everywhere.

In This Article

What is the most common language in Africa?

Swahili is the most common language spoken and understood in Africa.

Swahili is spoken by 200 million Africans, followed by Yoruba by 45 million, Igbo by 30 million, and Fula by 35 million.

All of these languages belong to the Niger-Congo family found in central Africa.

Of the 1 billion African residents, 17% speak an Arabic dialect (mostly in Northern Africa), 10% speak Swahili (mostly in Central Africa), 5% speak a Berber dialect (mostly in Northwest Africa), and 5% speak Hausa (mostly in the Sahel, the region just south of the Sahara).

What are the Afroasiatic languages?

The Afroasiatic languages are spoken mostly in the northern part of Africa and just south of the Sahara.

There are over 375 languages spoken by around 400 million people in this family.

The origins of this language family are uncertain, although it finds some of its roots in ancient languages such as Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian.

Afroasiatic has the longest written history of all the world’s surviving language families due to these two ancient languages.

What are the Austronesian languages?

In contrast to others on this list, Austronesian is not originally an African language family.

The only Austronesian language spoken in Africa is Malagasy with over 20 million speakers exclusively in Madagascar.

The language is believed to have come with Bornean seafarers who landed on Madagascar millennia ago.

Other languages in the Austronesian family are spoken in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia.

What are the Indo-European languages?

Indo-European languages are those that evolved as they were integrated into the local vernacular of African countries.

These languages were originally Dutch, English, French, and Portuguese imported during colonial occupation.

Some of these languages later developed into separate languages like Afrikaans or simply dialects of the original.

What are the Khoisan languages?

Believed to be the oldest of all the African language families, the Khoisan family is also the smallest.

Around 30 Khoisan languages are spoken in Southern Africa, although many of them are endangered.

There are only around 100,000 indigenous Khoisan people left in Africa.

Many Khoisan people were integrated into other cultures, stripping them of their native languages and identity.

What are the Niger-Congo languages?

There are an estimated 1,300 to 1,700 languages in the Niger-Congo family, making it the biggest language family in the world.

Most people in Africa speak a language from the Niger-Congo language family.

This language family includes the four most common languages in Africa.

The Bantu language group forms the southern part of the Niger-Congo family, although some linguists refer to it as a separate family.

The Bantu languages have a wider speech area than all the other Niger-Congo languages.

What are the Nilo-Saharan languages?

The Nilo-Saharan language family makes up more than 100 different languages with over 11 million speakers.

Most of these languages are spoken in Northeastern Africa.

The connections between the languages in this family are questionable.

Many linguists believe these languages to be distinct since they don’t share any significant characteristics with other language groups.

What colonial languages are spoken in Africa?

Over the centuries, many nations have invaded and colonialized Africa.

Most of these nations were European, although some countries from the Middle East and Asia did the same.

While these languages are often recognized officially by a country, they are often quite different from their source.

Local languages and slang have blended with these European languages to form dialects.

French and Portuguese especially have African dialects that are often unintelligible for European speakers.

Colonial languages widespread in Africa are:

During Britain’s time of vast empire expansion, much of Africa belonged to them. English is the lingua francas (common bridging language) in many African countries. The 23 African countries with English as an official language are Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Spoken by over 100 million people across mostly West Africa, French is the official language of 22 African countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, and Togo.
While not as widespread as French or English, Portuguese still is lingua francas in several African countries. The African countries that officially use Portuguese are Angola, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Equatorial Guinea is the only African country with Spanish as its official language (alongside French and Portuguese). Spanish influence was much stronger in South and Central America than it was in Africa.

There are also several trade languages spoken in Northern African countries spread by the proliferation of trade.

Berber and Arabic are trade languages of note.

Africa, the cradle of humanity, is certainly rich with language.

While there are a few major language families that help organize things, it’s still overwhelming to be faced with the over 1,000 languages on the continent.

Linguists are still discovering more languages and making connections every year.

It’s best left to the experts to guide us, and we can simply appreciate how such a poverty-stricken continent can produce such a wealth of culture.

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Founder - @PollyWebster

Polly Webster is the founder of Foreign Lingo and a seasoned traveler with a decade of exploration under her belt.

Over the past 10 years, she has journeyed to numerous countries around the globe, immersing herself in diverse cultures, traditions, and languages.

Drawing from her rich experiences, Polly now writes insightful articles about travel, languages, traditions, and cultures, sharing her unique perspectives and invaluable tips with her readers.

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