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The Niger–Congo languages constitute the largest language family spoken in West Africa and perhaps the world in terms of the number of languages. [ citation needed ] One of its salient features is an elaborate noun class system with grammatical concord .
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.
West African Pidgin English arose during the period of the transatlantic slave trade as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders. Portuguese merchants were the first Europeans to trade in West Africa beginning in the 15th century, and West African Pidgin English contains numerous words of Portuguese origin such as sabi ('to know'), a derivation of the Portuguese saber. [3]
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.
Dangme is one of the Ga–Dangme languages within the Kwa branch. It is spoken in Greater Accra, in south-east Ghana and Togo. [18] Dangme is a West African Kwa language spoken in Ghana, and it has been gaining popularity among Ghana residents.
The Mande languages are a family of languages spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples. They include Maninka (Malinke) , Mandinka , Soninke , Bambara , Kpelle , Jula (Dioula) , Bozo , Mende , Susu , and Vai .
A man from Labé, Guinea, speaking Pular and West African French. African French (French: français africain) is the generic name of the varieties of the French language spoken by an estimated 320 million people in Africa in 2023 or 67% of the French-speaking population of the world [1] [2] [3] spread across 34 countries and territories.
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. It is spoken by the Yoruba people.