Aside from the number of countries in Africa and the population that defines its diversity, the continent is home to many languages. With roughly one-third of the world’s 6,000 languages, Africa boasts over 2,000 linguistic variations to cater to its population surpassing 1.2 billion.
On the continent, there are at least 75 languages in Africa which have more than one million speakers. The rest are spoken by populations ranging from a few hundred to several hundred thousand speakers.
Chief among African languages is Swahili, spoken in the southern and eastern parts of the continent. Hausa is the primary language for Chadic people in Nigeria, Niger and Chad, while Yoruba is spoken in southwest Nigeria, Benin Republic, and Togo. More than 150 million people speak each of these languages.
With this staggering linguistic variety, Africa stands as a testament to the beauty of human communication. And this linguistic diversity is not just a numerical feature but a living narrative that tells the stories of a multitude of cultures, traditions, and histories.
Also, non indigenous languages like English and French are widely spoken and used in various parts of the continent, primarily due to historical colonial influences. For instance, the English language is spoken by about 130 million Africans, and it’s an official or secondary language in 27 out of 54 countries on the continent.
Below are 10 African countries with the highest number of languages, according to Statista:
| Rank | Country | Number of languages |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nigeria | 520 |
| 2 | Cameroon | 227 |
| 3 | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 214 |
| 4 | Chad | 129 |
| 5 | Tanzania | 128 |
| 6 | Ethiopia | 92 |
| 7 | Côte d’Ivoire | 88 |
| 8 | Ghana | 83 |
| 9 | Sudan | 75 |
| 10 | South Sudan | 73 |