Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest continent and second most populous after Asia. At about 30,244,050 km² (11,677,240 mi²) including its adjacent islands, it covers 20.3 percent of the total land area on Earth. With over 800 million human inhabitants in 54 countries, it accounts for about one seventh of the world human population.

Languages

Main article: African languages

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By most estimates Africa contains well over a thousand languages. There are four major language families native to Africa.

Related Topics:
Language - Language families

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• The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia.
• The Nilo-Saharan language family consists of more than a hundred languages spoken by 30 million people. Nilo-Saharan languages are mainly spoken in Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and northern Tanzania.
• The Niger-Congo language family covers much of Sub-Saharan Africa and is probably the largest language family in the world in terms of different languages. A substantial number of them are the Bantu languages spoken in much of sub-Saharan Africa.
• The Khoisan languages number about 50 and are spoken in Southern Africa by approximately 120 000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are endangered. The Khoi and San peoples are considered the original inhabitants of this part of Africa.

Languages of Europe have also acquired prominence; English, French,Portuguese, and Spanish, are official languages in several countries as a result of colonization. In South Africa, which was unique in having a significant number of European settlers, English and Afrikaans are the native languages of a significant portion of the population.

Related Topics:
English - French - Portuguese - Spanish - Official language - South Africa - Afrikaans

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