In total, there are at least 75 languages in africa which have more than one million speakers. New languages such as kenyas sheng, a mixture of english, swahili and mothertongues, are emerging. The eleventh official language is english, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official. One language cluster, fula also called fulani, peul, fulfulde, and toucouleur, accounts for more than half of this number and is. More than 500 languages are spoken in the african nation of nigeriaone of the highest instances of language diversity in any country on earth.
There are over 200 artificial languages in books, movies, and tv shows, such as klingon. The 300 languages project is a special effort by the rosetta project, part of the long now foundation, to begin the construction of a universal corpus of human language by collecting parallel text and audio in the worlds 300 most widelyspoken languages. It generally appears that the official language of a country is the one in which the laws of the country are made and publicised, whereas the national language is. By comparison, the continent of europe has only about 300 languages. Atlantic languages, formerly west atlantic languages, branch of the nigercongo language family spoken primarily in senegal, the gambia, guinea, guineabissau, sierra leone, and liberia. Breaking with the traditional approach to the continents language question by focusing on the often overlooked issue of the link between african languages and economic development, language policy and economics argues that african languages are an. Though arabic, english and french are the principal languages on the continent, knowledge of nine top african languages may be required to do business successfully on the continent. Africa is a veritable buffet for the language learner. There are almost exactly one billion people living in africa, and they speak more than 2,000 languages. He later embarked on the translation of some other books of the new testament into isoko. The african writer and the english language chinua achebe in june 1962, there was a writers gathering at makerere, impressively styled.
African means belonging or relating to the continent of africa, or to its countries or. Over 300 languages are spoken in africa, yet most africans are able to communicate with each other because they know either french, english, or their tribes have the same language. The book surveys the most important language groupings in the region in terms of precolonial and colonial history. Most african languages have no minimal contrast between bilabial and labiodental sounds, since plosives and nasals are usually bilabial, while affricates and fricatives are generally labiodental. The languages of west africa by westermann, diedrich, 18751956. African language publishing for children in south africa. For instance, no african language is the only official. The papuan language of rotokas only has 11 letters, making it the smallest alphabet. Click or tap on a single book collection to display storybooks included in a. This book explores the trends, challenges, and opportunities of publishing in african languages from national, regional, and international perspectives. The rest are spoken by populations ranging from a few hundred to several hundred thousand speakers.
So, if people stop speaking the old languages, what, if anything, will be. A conference of african writers of english expression. Open access to picture storybooks in the languages of africa. Isindebele, sesotho sa leboa, sesotho sa borwa, siswati, xitsonga, setswana, tshiven. English, arabic, french, swahili and hausa are the most widespread languages in africa. African languages an introduction semantic scholar.
Other people were also involved at different times in the translation of. Any book publisher attempting to publish in indigenous languages is at an. View notes languages of africa from afamast 1121 at ohio state university. These two illustrations also illustrate what makes this book useful.
This book addresses the perennial question of how to promote africas indigenous languages as medium of instruction in educational systems. African definition and meaning collins english dictionary. We cannot focus only on the languages whose age is determined by their earliest written form. World ebook librarys millennium collection offers millions of works by the greatest thinkers of the last 1,000 years, works from america, asia, africa, and europe, in over 300 different languages. The language situation in africa today was a government primary school which had swahili medium upto the fourth grade. Nigercongo or perhaps atlanticcongo languages bantu and nonbantu, the inclusion of mande and a few other groups is disputed are spoken in west, central, southeast and southern africa afroasiatic languages are spread throughout western asia, north africa, the horn of africa and parts of the sahel. It has around 75 million native speakers worldwide. Africa is home to the highest linguistic diversity in the world, with over 2000 different languages. Over 300 languages are spoken in africa, yet most africans are able to communicate with each other. Languages of africa languages of africa over 3,000. Over 300 languages are spoken in africa, yet most africans.
At least thirtyfive languages indigenous to south africa are spoken in the republic, ten of which are official languages of south africa. Collections are any number of storybooks grouped together with a common purpose, theme or language. It covers the four major language groupings nigercongo, nilosaharan, afroasiatic and khoisan, the core areas of modern theoretical linguistics phonology, morphology, syntax, typology, sociolinguistics, comparative linguistics, and language, history and society. The book surveys essential language groupings in the world in phrases of precolonial and colonial historic previous. There are about 2,000 languages in africa and of those, everybody agrees that about 300 are seriously endangered, sands said.
This barcode number lets you verify that youre getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. Zulu is a language largely spoken in south africa by the zulu people and is one among the many official languages of south africa. Despite this sonorous and rather solemn title, it turned out to be a very lively affair and a very exciting and useful experience for many of us. Unfortunately, ive found that, in online language learning communities, african languages are widely overlooked when someone is choosing a second or third language. Indeed, no one knows just how many languages there are. Our collection of scholarly and academic articles have been curated from every field of study, with a extra focus on education, science, sociology, and technology. By comparison, europe, which has about an eighth of the. Another method albeit tedious is to identify different versions of a book by looking at the jacket illustration in the catalogues. In africa, people speak more languages than any other continent. This book is the first general introduction to african languages and linguistics to be published in.
South african journal of african languages national. It is spoken largely in the eastern part of south africa and is characterized by unique click sounds within the dialect. Share photos and videos, send messages and get updates. In use, you can explore ways in which you might use the african storybooks. The languages of africa by greenberg, joseph harold, 1915publication date 1963 topics african languages. Revitalizing endangered languages for future generations. With anywhere between and 2000 languages, africa is home to approximately onethird of the worlds languages. In fact, its estimated that there may be over 3,000 languages spoken in africa. Through case studies ranging across the continent, the contributors consider multilingualism in the classroom as well as in domains ranging from music and film to politics and figurative language. African languages were published at this time, but for books prescribed by government for school so there was.
Afroasiatic afroasiatic, also known as afrasian and in older sources as hamitosemitic or semitohamitic, is a large language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in west asia, north africa, the horn of africa and parts of the sahel. This book is the first general introduction to african languages and linguistics to be published in english. Connect with friends, family and other people you know. Download pdf language planning in africa free online. The languages of africa are divided into several major language families. Bible translations into the languages of africa wikipedia.
The diversity of africas languages is evidenced by their populations. The state of multilingual publishing in south africa. Pdf major publishers in many parts of africa are conspicuous by their. Only 23 languages account for more than half of the worlds population. French in 1943, and has since been translated into 300 languages most recently into hassanya, which is a north african variant of arabic. English, however, is not the countrys most commonly used language. It evolved from the dutch vernacular of holland hollandic dialect spoken by the largely dutch settlers and then by the native africans who associated with them in the southwest of what is now south africa, where it. English is the official language of nigeria, and it is taught in schools throughout the country. Languages of africa over 3,000 languages are spoken across the continent four major language types 1. Introduction to african languages the african language. Publishers, linguists and educators offer their experiences of language publishing in the three regions of sub saharan africa. But up to 300 languages have less than 10,000 speakers, which puts them on the uns endangered list, and 37 are in danger of completely dying out in the next few years. Other articles where african languages is discussed.
The little prince is now the mosttranslated book in the world. The resulting collection will contain thousands of volunteercontributed public domain text documents and audio recordings which will be made. Languages of this area are characterized by pronounced high and low pitch tones tone languages, a quality exploited when two drumsa lowerpitched, or male, drum and a higherpitched, or female, onetransmit low and high tones, respectively. These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. With more than 2,000 distinct languages, africa has a third of the worlds languages with less than a seventh of the worlds population. The approximately 45 atlantic languages are spoken by about 30 million people. It has a long tradition that survives to this day, and its earliest written form dates to 300 bc, making it over 2000 years old. The essays in languages in africa explore the layers of african multilingualism as they affect language policy and education.
627 634 195 1178 1384 329 1362 1407 117 653 346 694 659 1473 561 1240 842 1069 86 1285 921 607 77 1085 630 5 1296 1254 649 1378 424 74 1102