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Hombert & Philippson (2009) [19] list a number of African languages that have been classified as language isolates at one point or another. Many of these are simply unclassified, but Hombert & Philippson believe Africa has about twenty language families, including isolates. Beside the possibilities listed above, there are:
Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible." [1] English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation) as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions. Many different dialects can be identified based on these ...
The Polyglotta Africana was the second work carried out by Koelle during his five years in Sierra Leone, the first being a grammar of the Vai language in 1849. [3] The idea of this was to use the fact that Sierra Leone was a melting pot of ex-slaves from all over Africa to compile a list of 280 basic words (a sort of early Swadesh list) in some 160 languages and dialects.
The Swahili word for "book", kitabu, is borrowed from Arabic كتاب kitāb(un) "book" (plural كتب kutub; from the Arabic root k.t.b. "write"). However, the Swahili plural form of this word ("books") is vitabu, following Bantu grammar in which the ki-of kitabu is reanalysed (reinterpreted) as a nominal class prefix whose plural is vi-(class ...
The following list names English words that originate from African languages. Adinkra – from Akan, visual symbols that represent concepts or aphorisms. Andriana – from Malagasy, aristocratic noble class of the Kingdom of Madagascar; apartheid – from Afrikaans, "separateness" Aṣẹ - from Yoruba, "I affirm" or "make it happen"
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.
Akan, part of the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo family, is a dialect continuum, [15] but with regard to official status, only a few out of the many varieties of Akan are recognised: Fante, Asante Twi, Akuapem Twi. Taken as a whole, Akan is the most-widely spoken language in Ghana. [10]
The word kintu exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to the concept of "language". [15] In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term Kintu has a derogatory significance. [16]