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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.
After gaining independence, many African countries, in the search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former Indo-European colonial language, to be used in government and education. However, in recent years, African countries have become increasingly supportive of maintaining linguistic diversity.
Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions of people in the five African Great Lakes countries (Kenya, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania), where it is an official or national language. It is also the first language for many people in Tanzania, especially in the coastal regions of Tanga, Pwani, Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi.
Swahili is the most widespread lingua franca in East Africa. [21] In Congo, the local dialect of Swahili is known as Congo Swahili and differs considerably from Standard Swahili. [22] Many variations of Congo Swahili are spoken in the country but the major one is Kingwana, sometimes called Copperbelt Swahili, especially in the Katanga area.
Twi is the common name of the Akan without Fante. [2] [3] Effectively, it is a synonym for 'Akan' that is not used by the Fante people.It is not a linguistic grouping, as Akuapem Twi is more closely related to Fante dialect than it is to Asante Twi. [4]
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language. These charts give a diaphoneme for each sound, followed by its realization in different dialects. The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values.
The most common language spoken as a first language by South Africans is Zulu (23%), followed by Xhosa (16%), and Afrikaans (14%). English is the fourth most common first language in the country (9.6%), but is understood in most urban areas and is the dominant language in government and the media.
Print/export Download as PDF; Printable version; In other projects ... Languages of Africa by country (56 C) Languages of the African diaspora (5 C, 48 P) *