11 top spoken languages in Africa

Africa is a huge continent, really huge—more than you might be thinking. We’re talking a continent as big as the U.S., India, China and most of Europe combined. Africa is the second most populous continent in the world, with over one billion people.

Due to its hugeness, it means more languages than you can count. It’s estimated that there may be over 3,000 languages spoken in Africa! Making it home to the highest linguistic diversity in the world.

 

Below are the top 11 African languages spoken on Africa.

 

FRENCH

There are over 120 million French speakers who use the language as their mother tongue or secondary language. Twenty-six African states form part of Francophone Africa, forming part of the top French-speaking countries. The highest percentage of French people are from Gabon, Mauritius, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Sao Tome e Principe, Tunisia, Guinea, Seychelles, Democratic Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea. The second-largest French-speaking country is Algeria, with over 50 percent of the French speaker population. Much of the central and western Africa states form part of Francophone Africa, including Morocco, Mauritania, Rwanda, Comoros, and Djibouti. To say hello in French, one says, “Bonjour.”

 

PORTUGUESE

Portuguese is the official language of six African states, including Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome e Principe, and Equatorial Guinea. These states are also referred to as Lusophone Africa. Portuguese has become a post-colonial language in Africa and one of the African Union’s working languages and the Southern African Development Community. It coexists on the continent with indigenous languages, mainly the Niger-Congo family languages in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau and Portuguese-based creoles in Guinea. There are approximately 14 million people who use Portuguese as their mother tongue and over 30 million secondary speakers. To say hello in Portuguese, one says, “Olá.”

 

ARABIC

Arabic is a huge language, fit for a huge continent.

If you decide to learn Arabic, well, you’ll probably get more bang for your buck than you ever thought possible.

Arabic is a Semitic language, and it’s spoken by 280 million native speakers worldwide. As far as Africa is concerned, Arabic is an official language in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Eritrea, and the list! It’s also widely spoken in countries where it hasn’t yet been recognized as an official language.

Arabic comes in several flavors—to start, you’ll choose between Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial dialects. If you learn Modern Standard Arabic, you’ll communicate with most Arabic speakers around the world. Modern Standard Arabic is the written form of the language—this is the Arabic used in news articles, online and in novels. It’s spoken in newscasts and some TV shows.

However, this is not the form of Arabic that native speakers always learn as children. They learn various dialects of Arabic, unique to their regions. Some of these dialects are more mutually intelligible (speakers of different dialects can understand each other) than others, but learning, say, Moroccan or Egyptian Colloquial Arabic gets you deeply connected with a culture in a way that Modern Standard Arabic can’t.

So, if you get really into Arabic, you’ll want to learn Modern Standard first, and then adopt a colloquial dialect of your choice!

 

SHONA

Shona is the most spoken language in Zimbabwe, with over 10 million speakers in over 14 million. It is Bantu language from the Bantu/Nguni family of languages and has speakers in Botswana and Mozambique. It is the principal language of Zimbabwe, along with Ndebele and English. To say hello in Shona, one says, “Mhoro.”

 

ZULU

IsiZulu, or Zulu, is one of South Africa’s official languages and has over 10 million speakers. It is a member of the Bantu/Nguni family of languages and is spoken mainly in eastern South Africa. It is the second most widely spoken Bantu language, after Shona, and is written using the Latin alphabet. Unique click sounds within the dialect characterize it due to influence from the Khoisan language. To say hello in Zulu, one says, “Sawubona.”

 

IGBO

One of Nigeria’s official languages, Igbo is spoken by over 20 million people, with many speakers in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The language has more than 20 dialects, with Central Igbo being the most prevalent. The language was made prominent by author Chinua Achebe, who wrote the popular book “Things Fall Apart” and wrote most of his books in Igbo, mirroring and popularizing Igbo culture. It falls under the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family of languages. To say hello in Igbo, one says, “Ndewo.”

 

HAUSA

Hausa is one of Nigeria’s official languages, and one of the most spoken Chadic languages on the continent, with over 40 million native and second-language speakers. It originated as the Hausa people’s language in northern Nigeria and southern Niger and soon spread as the lingua franca of western Africa due to trade. It is spoken mainly in northern Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Germany, Ghana, Sudan, Togo, and North Africa. It uses the Boko and Latin alphabet as its writing system and is also the basic language for most Muslim populations in western Africa. To say hello in Hausa, one says, “Sannu.”

 

OROMO

Oromo is spoken by over 30 million people in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt. The Oromo people account for more than 40% of the Ethiopian population and are the country’s largest ethnic group. The language’s writing was forbidden between 1974 and 1991 under the Mengistu regime, even though limited usage of the Ge’ez script was allowed. After 1991, the language adopted the Latin alphabet. It falls under the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. To say hello in Oromo, one says, “Akkam.”

 

YORUBA

Yoruba is one of West Africa’s most-spoken languages, accounting for over 30 million speakers in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, and it is one of Nigeria’s official languages. It is also widely spoken by West African ex-pats in the US and UK. It is the Yoruba people’s mother tongue in Nigeria and has over fifteen dialects, including Awori, Ijesha, Ilaje, and Ila. It is a tonal language with three tones: high, mid, and low, and forms part of the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo family of languages. To say hello in Yoruba, one says, “Bawo.”

 

AMHARIC

Amharic is Ethiopia’s official language and is the second most spoken language in the country after Oromo, with over 21 million speakers. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic and is also the language of over 2 million Ethiopians living outside of the country. The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family originating from the Middle East. Amharic, along with Arabic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya, is the most spoken Semitic languages globally by way of native speakers. It is written in the Ge’ez or Ethiopic script, with over 30 different characters. To say hello in Amharic, one says, “Salam.”

 

Amharic is a rich and ancient Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia.

 

It’s related to Arabic and Hebrew, and with 22 million native speakers, it’s the second most widely spoken Semitic language after Arabic.

 

Amharic is gorgeous when spoken, and it’s even more stunning when written in its unique script. It uses an alphasyllabary called Fidel. Each “letter” represents a consonant/vowel combination, but the forms of the consonants and vowels change depending on the combinations.

Learning to write Fidel might take a little longer than learning the Arabic script, but it’s still well within the average learner’s reach. Try taking advantage of tools like SRS (Spaced Repetition Systems) to efficiently memorize each letter and its various combinations

Amharic is also host to a growing body of Ethiopian literature. Poetry and novels are both popular, and learning Amharic will open the door to experiencing literature far different from that of the rest of the world. Once you have the basics down, try your hand at reading the most famous Amharic novel, “Fiqir Iske Meqabir” (translated into English as “Love Unto Crypt”) by Haddis Alemayehu.

 

SWAHILI

Swahili is the most spoken language in Africa, with over 100 million speakers. It is a Bantu language believed to have originated from other languages, mainly Arabic, due to historical interactions between Arabs from the Middle East and East Africans. Swahili is Tanzania’s official language, as well as the medium of instruction in all schools. It is also Kenya’s official language, as well as Uganda. Other Swahili speaking nations include Rwanda, Burundi, southern Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan northern Mozambique and the Comoros Islands. To greet in Swahili, one says, “Jambo,” or “Habari” when greeting an elder.

Swahili is a Bantu language widely spoken in the African Great Lakes region, which comprises a huge swath of Central, Southern and East African. There’s also a huge number of Swahili speakers in countries adjacent to the Great Lakes region.

With Swahili under your belt, you’ll visit gorgeous countries like Tanzania and Kenya, where Swahili is an official language. Swahili will also help you get around parts of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While 15 million people natively speak it, there are more than 150 million speakers total, and it’s a common second language throughout this region!

Swahili is quite appealing to many language learners because it’s widely spoken and for its history. Kiswahili (the name of the language in Swahili) means “coastal language,” and it’s a trade language created to facilitate communications between several Southern and Eastern Africa’s wide variety of ethnic group.

It’s also not too hard for English speakers to learn—unlike many African languages, Swahili doesn’t use tones, and, unlike Arabic and Amharic, it uses the Latin alphabet. If you know some Arabic, you have a good head start, as there are tons of Arabic loanwords in Swahili.

What’s more, I guarantee you already know a handful of Swahili words. Why? The writers of Disney’s “The Lion King” had a bit of a love affair with Swahili. Hakuna Matata? That’s Swahili for “no worries!” Simba? Swahili for “lion!”

 

 

Other widely spoken languages of Africa include Berber, which is a popular dialect in North Africa, specifically in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, and Egypt, with approximately 20 million speakers; Somali, which is a Cushitic language spoken in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya by approximately 20 million speakers; Fulani, which is widely spoken in western and Central Africa by approximately 18 million speakers; Rundi from Burundi which is spoken by over 10 million people; Kinyarwanda in Rwanda which is spoken by over 10 million speakers and Tigrinya, which has over 6 million speakers in Central Eritrea and Sudan. Chichewa is popular in Malawi with over 6 million speakers, and Spanish is also spoken in Equatorial Guinea by over 600,000 people.