Africa is home to the highest linguistic diversity in the world with over 1500 different languages. Even though the continent has a wide range of languages, the principal languages found across all 54 countries include Arabic, French and English.
Interesting facts to know about languages in Africa is that they form part of four language groups, namely Afro-Asiatic covering Northern Africa, Central Sahara and the Horn of Africa, Nilo-Saharan covering Central and Eastern Africa, Niger-Congo covering Central, Southern and Eastern Africa and Khoisan, covering the western part of Southern Africa.
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Arabic has approximately 100 million African speakers, with close to 54 million of them being from Egypt, while English is spoken mainly in Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The top 10 languages spoken on the continent, besides English and Arabic, are Swahili, Amharic, Yoruba, Oromo, Hausa, Igbo, isiZulu, Shona, Portuguese and French.
1. Swahili
Hello – “Hujambo,” but if you’re greeting elders or people older than you, say “Habari,” which also means “Good morning.”
How are you? – “Habari gani”
I am fine – “Nzuri”
Thank you – “Asante,” and “Thank you very much” is “Asante sana.”
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