What Are The Colonial (European) Languages Spoken In Sub-Saharan Africa?

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What are the colonial languages spoken in sub Saharan Africa?

Since the colonial era Indo-European languages such as Afrikaans English French and Portuguese have held official status in many countries and are widely spoken generally as lingua francas. (See African French and African Portuguese.)

What is the oldest language in sub Saharan Africa?

Africa is known for being home to some of the ancient languages in the world. Although it is hard to be certain that a particular language spoken in Africa was the oldest many people agree on the name of Ancient Egyptian. The name of the Khoisan languages also shows up often during such discussions.

How many colonial languages are spoken in Africa?

Africa is a continent with a very high linguistic diversity there are an estimated 1500-2000 African languages. gathering appoximately 140 languages with some eleven millions speakers scattered in Central and Eastern Africa.

Which two colonial languages are the most widespread in sub Saharan Africa?

Why are English and French the most common languages spoken in Sub Saharan Africa? Because of European colonization what do Sub Saharan Africans primarily export? South Africa’s economy is ranked 30th in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) yet has very high poverty rates.

What are the major languages in Sub Saharan Africa?

Arabic Somali Berber Amharic Oromo Igbo Swahili Hausa Manding Fulani and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people. Twelve dialect clusters (which may group up to a hundred linguistic varieties) are spoken by 75 percent and fifteen by 85 percent of Africans as a first or additional language.

What is the most widely spoken language group in sub Saharan Africa?

The most widely spoken languages of Africa Swahili (100 million) Yoruba (20 million) Igbo (21 million) and Fula (13 million) all belong to the Niger-Congo family. Learn more about the Niger-Congo language family on Ethnologue.

How many languages are spoken in Europe?

Europe is home to 24 official languages while as many as 200 languages are spoken across the continent. That might not seem like many compared to some continents.

What are the 12 most spoken languages in Africa?

  • Zulu. Zulu is another language with over 6 million native speakers and 9 million who speak it as a second language. …
  • Somali. Somali belongs to the Cushitic family of languages similar to Oromo. …
  • Shona. Shona is a language indigenous to the Shona people native to Zimbabwe. …
  • Hausa. …
  • Yoruba. …
  • Igbo.

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What is the dominant language family in Sub-Saharan Africa?

What is the largest and most extensive language family in Sub-Saharan Africa? Niger-Congo language family dominates with the Bantu language group being the largest and most extensive subfamily.

What is a European colonial language?

creole languages vernacular languages that developed in colonial European plantation settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between groups that spoke mutually unintelligible languages.

What are colonial languages?

As a result European languages or colonial languages became the official language(s) in most Africa countries. While this remains the case even today most Africans speak indigenous African languages as a first language and colonial languages are generally spoken as a second or third language.

How many European languages are spoken in Africa?

As visualized on Infograph Africa is home to some 1.216 billion people while Europe is home to around 743.1 million. However Africa is home to as many as 3 000 languages (according to Epstein and Kole’s Languages of African Literature 1998) while Europe boasts around 300.

Why have English and French have become common languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa?

effective governments and has contributed to political instability in several nation in this region. … natural materials are readily available in the region. English and French have become common languages spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa because. of a history of European colonization in the region.

What is the main language spoken in Africa?

While Arabic is the most spoken language in Africa there’s plenty more – other popular languages include Amharic Berber Portuguese Oromo Igbo Yoruba Zulu and Shona.

Which is the most important of the indigenous language groups in sub-Saharan Africa?

The Niger-Congo language family is one of the largest language families in the world and the largest one in Africa in terms of its geographical spread across most of sub-Saharan Africa number of speakers and the number of languages (1514).

How many languages are spoken in Congo?

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world with over 200 languages spoken in the country. While French is the official language and widely used in education and government there are four national languages: Kikongo (Kituba) Lingala Swahili and Tshiluba.

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Which is the most spoken language in Europe?

English is still the most spoken language in the EU by far with German now spoken by 36% of citizens and French spoken by 29% of the EU’s new smaller population of 446 million people. Italian comes fourth at 18% followed by 17% for Spanish.

What is the second most spoken language in Africa?

Branching out from the Bantu/Nguni family of languages Zulu has more than 10 million speakers and is the second most widely spoken Bantu language (after Shona).

How many languages are spoken?

Well roughly 6 500 languages are spoken in the world today. Each and every one of them make the world a diverse and beautiful place. Sadly some of these languages are less widely spoken than others. Take Busuu for example – we’re named after a language spoken by only eight people.

What’s the most spoken language in the world?

The most spoken languages in the world
  1. English (1.132 million speakers) Native speakers: 379 million. …
  2. Mandarin (1.117 million speakers) …
  3. Hindi (615 million speakers) …
  4. Spanish (534 million speakers) …
  5. French (280 million speakers) …
  6. Arabic (274 million speakers) …
  7. Bengali (265 million speakers) …
  8. Russian (258 million speakers)

What language is spoke in Denmark?

Denmark/Official languages
Denmark has one official language: Danish. However there are several minority languages spoken throughout the territory if you include The Faeroe Islands and Greenland. Danes are taught English from a very young age and 86% of all Danes speak English as a second language.

What is the main language spoken in Europe?

Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: Russian French Italian German and English. Russian is the most spoken native language in Europe and English has the largest number of speakers in total including some 200 million speakers of English as a second or foreign language.

What are the three major languages of Europe?

All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages but in practice only three – English French and German – are in wide general use and of these English is the most commonly used.

What language do European languages come from?

Many European languages have a strong Latin base simply because the Romans ruled Europe for hundreds of years – languages such as French and Spanish are called ‘Romance’ languages for this reason. Most European languages are related having originally derived from ancient Indian languages.

What are the 5 main languages in Africa?

Top 10 Most Popular African Languages
  • SWAHILI. The most spoken language in Africa is Swahili which is said to have between 100 and 150 million speakers. …
  • AMHARIC. Amharic is one of the main languages spoken in Ethiopia by over 20 million speakers. …
  • YORUBA. …
  • OROMO. …
  • Hausa. …
  • IGBO. …
  • ZULU. …
  • SHONA.

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Is Zulu a written language?

Zulu like most indigenous Southern African languages was not a written language until the arrival of missionaries from Europe who documented the language using the Latin script. The first grammar book of the Zulu language was published in Norway in 1850 by the Norwegian missionary Hans Schreuder.

What is the fourth most spoken language in Africa?

Swahili or Kiswahili is the fourth most popularly spoken language on the Continent. This is a Bantu language that is spoken as the first language among the Swahili people of East Africa.

Is Latin a proto language?

Some universally accepted proto-languages are Proto-Indo-European Proto-Uralic and Proto-Dravidian. … For example Latin is the proto-language of the Romance language family which includes such modern languages as French Italian Portuguese Romanian Catalan and Spanish.

What are the three largest language families?

Language Families With The Highest Number Of Speakers
Rank Language Family Estimated Speakers
1 Indo-European 2 910 000 000
2 Sino-Tibetan 1 268 000 000
3 Niger-Congo 437 000 000
4 Austronesian 386 000 000

Which was the official language of European colonies in South Africa and America?

By the mid-16th century Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities.

What are regional dialects?

Regional dialect:

A regional dialect is not a distinct language but a variety of a language spoken in a particular area of a country. Some regional dialects have been given traditional names which mark them out as being significantly different from standard varieties spoken in the same place.

Which language combines French and African influences?

Louisiana Creole is French-based language with many African influences and elements.

Is English a colonized language?

Until the 19th century the British were the major superpower and their method of colonization included establishing schools which taught English language and Western culture to locals who needed to be “modernized.” Most former British colonies now use English as their official language (e.g. Ghana and South Africa).

What African countries speak Spanish?

Did you know Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish speaking country in Africa? With plenty of history this country has amazed the world thanks to its resilience and resourcefulness. Today you’ll learn about the history of Equatorial Guinea and how it turned out to be the only Spanish speaking country in Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa – Colonial and Postcolonial African Theatre

The Languages of Africa

History of Sub Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa Explained | World101

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