Swahili to become East Africa’s official language. The EAC is made up of five countries, namely Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
What are the three main languages spoken in East Africa?
Over 30 distinct languages and dialect clusters are spoken in Kenya. They may be grouped into three categories: Bantu, Cushitic, and Nilotic/ Paranilotic. Bantu is spoken by 65% of the population, Cushitic by 4%, and Nilotic/Paranilotic by 31%.
What languages are spoken in eastern Africa?
Millions of people speak Swahili, Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Berber, Oromo, Hausa, Yoruba, Mandingo, Igbo, and Fulani. If one were to group similar languages, fifteen of these groups – sometimes comprising hundreds of individual languages – are spoken by 85% of Africans as a native language or second language.
How many languages are spoken in East Africa?
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. gathering appoximately 140 languages with some eleven millions speakers scattered in Central and Eastern Africa.
What is the most widely spoken African language in East Africa?
1. SWAHILI. The most spoken language in Africa is Swahili which is said to have between 100 and 150 million speakers.
Who speaks the best English in Africa?
A report by the World Linguistic Society has named Uganda as the best English speaking country in Africa. The study names Uganda at the top, followed by Zambia, South Africa and Kenya respectively.
What is the oldest African language?
Afrikaans is one of the official languages of South Africa. It belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. It evolved from the variety of Dutch which was spoken by Dutch settlers in South Africa.
What is the largest language family in Africa?
The Niger-Congo language family is the largest group of Africa (and probably of the world) in terms of the number of languages.
How do you say hi in Swahili?
There are basically five ways to say hello in Swahili:
- Hujambo or jambo (how are you?) – Sijambo (seeJAmbo) (I am fine / no worries)
- Habari? (any news?) – nzuri (nZOOree) (fine)
- U hali gani? (oo HAlee GAnee) (how are you) – njema (fine)
- Shikamoo (a young person to an elder) – marahaba.
- For casual interactions: mambo?
27.03.2017
What is African language called?
Swahili language, also called kiSwahili, or Kiswahili, Bantu language spoken either as a mother tongue or as a fluent second language on the east coast of Africa in an area extending from Lamu Island, Kenya, in the north to the southern border of Tanzania in the south.
How do u say hello in Kenya?
The most common greeting among those who speak Swahili is ‘Hujambo’ (‘Hello’) or the more colloquial greeting of ‘Jambo’. Both greetings can be responded with the phrase ‘sijambo’, which means ‘I am well’. Other common greetings in contemporary Kenya include ‘sasa’ or ‘Mambo’.
What percentage of Africa speaks Swahili?
About 10 percent speak Swahili, the lingua franca of Southeast Africa; about 5 percent speak a Berber dialect; and about 5 percent speak Hausa, which serves as a lingua franca in much of the Sahel.
What does Africa mean in Latin?
Afri (singular Afer) was a Latin name for the inhabitants of Africa, referring in its widest sense to all the lands south of the Mediterranean (Ancient Libya). Latin speakers at first used afer as an adjective, meaning “of Africa”. As a substantive, it denoted a native of Africa; i.e., an African.
What is the most beautiful language in Africa?
Amharic. 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.
What is the second most spoken language in Africa?
Branching out from the Bantu/Nguni family of languages, Zulu has more than 10 million speakers and is the second most widely spoken Bantu language (after Shona). Zulu is written using the Latin alphabet and is influenced by the Khoisan language which accounts for the unique “clicking” sounds within the dialect.
What is the best African language to learn?
Arguably, the most useful, indigenous African languages for Americans to learn are Yoruba (primarily spoken in Nigeria), Xhosa (South Africa), Swahili (Kenya, Tanzania, and much of East Africa), and Amharic (mainly Ethiopia).