African languages

For the purposes of this wiki resource, "African languages" are understood to include the languages indigenous to the continent, long-established languages from other regions that are mother tongues of large populations in Africa (such as Arabic, Malagasy, and Afrikaans), and African creoles.

The European languages of wider communication (ELWCs) that are used officially in many countries of Africa (English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish) are not considered African languages in this sense, or for the purposes of this localisation resource.

Lists of African languages

This wiki organises pages on African languages in two categories:

• Major languages, a list of 93 languages most widely used in terms of numbers of speakers. The list was modified from one used by David Dwyer in a compilation of resources on African languages (1987; rev. 1994; rev. and put online in 1999)
• More languages, pages on other African languages

The wiki also has pages featuring other lists of African languages:

• Ben Elugbe's list of 50 cross-border languages and language clusters put together as part of an article for presentation at a conference on crossborder languages held in Okahandja, Namibia in 1996.
• Michel Malherbe's list of about 400 languages published in 2000, with a number of these indicated as most important in terms of usage.
• A list published by UNESCO of 159 "community languages" as part of a 1985 survey of use of African languages in literacy and education.
• Kwesi Kwaa Prah's list of 12-15 "core languages" which are spoken by 75-85% of Africans as first or additional languages (published in 2002 and 2003).
• Herman Batibo's list of nationally and areally dominant languages by country, from an appendix of a book he published in 2005.
• Major languages (repeated here to make trail circular)

Ethnologue

Ethnologue? counts 2138 living languages? in Africa, of which "Institutional: 194, Developing?: 542, Vigorous: 1,026, In Trouble: 245, Dying: 131" (there do not appear to be any continent-level lists for any of these categories).

Categorising African languages by role & extent of use

ACALAN

For its purposes, ACALAN groups languages in Africa as follows (per information on its website, accessed 9 Nov 2015; comments in italics added here):

• Widely spoken cross-border languages (these evidently include 41 "vehicular cross-border languages")
• Limited cross-border languages
  • Limited symmetric cross-border languages (similar populations on both sides of a border)
  • Limited asymmetric cross-border languages (more on one side of a border than the other)
• Widely spoken non-cross-border languages
• Limited non-cross-border languages
• Endangered languages
• Imported (or partner) languages (these evidently include the ELWCs)

Dar es Salaam, 1979

The Subregional Seminar on National Languages and Teacher Training held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1979 proposed a "five-tier categorisation of African languages in relation to development as follows:

• Mother tongue languages
• Community languages
• National language or languages (i.e., decreed as such)
• Languages of African intercommunication
• International languages" (UNESCO)

Mapping languages of Africa

Various maps and collections of maps showing areas in which African languages are spoken:

• Langage Map of Africa and Adjacent Islands, by David Dalby http://www.linguasphere.info/lcontao/carte-des-langues-de-lafrique.html (note file is very large: 80.4 MB)
• Distribution of African languages / Distribution linguistique en Afrique http://www.muturzikin.com/carteafrique.htm (set of maps based on information from other sources)

Also a project:

• Linguistic Atlas Project for Africa, ACALAN http://www.acalan.org/eng/projets/atlas.php/

References & links

• ACALAN, "About ACALAN" http://www.acalan.org/eng/about_acalan/about_acalan.php
• Ethnologue, https://www.ethnologue.com/region/Africa
• UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Africa. 1985. African community languages and their use in literacy and education : a regional survey. Dakar : UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/000933/093309eb.pdf
• Wikipedia
  • AF "Afrikatale" https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikatale
  • AR "اللغات في أفريقيا" https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/اللغات_في_أفريقي
  • EN "Languages of Africa" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Africa
  • FR "Langues en Afrique" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_en_Afrique
  • KG "Bandinga ya Afrika" https://kg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandinga_ya_Afrika
  • PT "Línguas africanas" https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Línguas_africanas
  • SW "Lugha za Afrika" https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugha_za_Afrika
  • XH "Iilwimi zaseAfrika" https://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iilwimi_zaseAfrika

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