Africa Continent Spoken Languages

Official and Spoken Languages of African Countries.

List of official, national and spoken languages of Africa.


Africa is a continent with a very high linguistic diversity, there are an estimated 1500-2000 African languages.
Of these languages four main groupings can be distinguished:

Afro-Asiatic
(appoximately 200 languages) covering nearly Northern Africa (including the horn of Africa, Central Sahara et the top Nile)


Nilo-Saharian
gathering appoximately 140 languages with some eleven millions speakers scattered in Central and Eastern Africa.


Niger-Saharian (Niger-Congo)
covering the two third of Africa with as a principal branch the Niger-Congo which gathers more than 1000 languages with some 200 millions speakers. The Bantu languages of Central, Southern, and Eastern Africa form a sub-group of the Niger Congo branch.


Khoisan
gathering about thirty languages in Western part of Southern Africa.

All African languages are considered official languages of the African Union