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Some linguistic features are particularly common among languages spoken in Africa, whereas others are less common. Such shared traits probably are not due to a common origin of all African languages. Instead, some may be due to language contact (resulting in borrowing) and specific idioms and phrases may be due to a similar cultural background.
The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each ethnicity generally having their own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic , Khoisan , Niger-Congo , and Nilo-Saharan populations.
There are over 520 native languages spoken in Nigeria. [1] [2] [3] The official language is English, [4] [5] which was the language of Colonial Nigeria.The English-based creole Nigerian Pidgin – first used by the British and African slavers to facilitate the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th century [6] – is the most common lingua franca, spoken by over 60 million people.
A Wolof speaker, recorded in Taiwan. Wolof (/ ˈ w oʊ l ɒ f / WOH-lof; [2] Wolof làkk, وࣷلࣷفْ لࣵکّ) is a Niger–Congo language spoken by the Wolof people in much of the West African subregion of Senegambia that is split between the countries of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania.
Yoruba (US: / ˈ j ɔːr ə b ə /, [2] UK: / ˈ j ɒr ʊ b ə /; [3] Yor. Èdè Yorùbá) is a Niger-Congo language that is spoken in West Africa, primarily in Southwestern and Central Nigeria, Benin, and parts of Togo.
Fulfulde, spoken throughout West Africa, is a member of the Senegambian branch. Other language families include Afro-Asiatic, represented by the Berber language Tamasheq and by Arabic, and the Songhay languages, which have traditionally been classified as Nilo-Saharan but may constitute an independent language family.
[2] Ewe (Eʋe or Eʋegbe [ɛβɛɡ͡bɛ]) [3] is a language spoken by approximately 5 million people in West Africa, mainly in Ghana and Togo. [1] Ewe is part of a group of related languages commonly called the Gbe languages. The other major Gbe language is Fon, which is mainly spoken in Benin.
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages [note 1] or North Atlantic languages [1]) of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages.. The Atlantic languages are spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though transhumant Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in large numbers across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan.