Background information about the linguistic situation in Africa
Africa is known to be by far the most linguistically diverse continent. The number of African languages is usually put at around 2000 (Grimes 2000), i.e. one third of the world’s linguistic heritage. This number is not static, as some languages are still being “discovered”, while others, with few speakers, are disappearing.
An assessment of language endangerment in Africa is difficult to establish because the criteria applied to measure endangerment differ. Sommer takes the number of speakers as the major criteria for her list of African endangered languages (Sommer 1992). She lists 140 languages as having less then 500 speakers or being extinct. If one considers every language that has under 10,000 speakers as endangered, the number for Africa rises to 300 languages. Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Grimes 2000) identifies 37 African languages that are on the verge of extinction (compared with 161 in the Americas). The list of 97 endangered languages given in the online version of the Atlas of the World’s languages in danger of disappearing follows the selection made by Brenzinger and Heine for the paper version of the Atlas (Wurm 22001).
The most widely accepted classification for African languages (excluding languages introduced over the past two thousand years, such as Arabic, Malagasy, Afrikaans, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) follows the proposition of Greenberg (1963). It presents four large phyla of indigenous African languages: Niger-Congo (1,436 languages), Afroasiatic (371 languages), Nilo-Saharan (196 languages) and Khoisan (35 languages).
Afroasiatic: This group of about 371 languages comprises approximately 175 million speakers and covers the greater part of northern Africa, including the eastern ‘horn’ of the continent, except for central Sahara, and some areas on the upper Nile. The Afroasiatic phylum is divided into six major families: Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, Semitic, Cushitic and Omotic. It is the only phylum that includes languages spoken exclusively outside of Africa (e.g. South Arabian languages in the Middle East and Maltese in Malta).
Niger-Congo: According to the most recent estimates, the Niger-Congo language phylum has 1,436 languages (Grimes 2000). This makes it the largest phylum of the world; its nearest rival, Austronesian, has 1,236 languages. At least 360 million Africans speak Niger-Congo languages. The phylum covers most of the southern two-thirds of Africa except for a large area in the South-West. Some of the major languages of Africa (according to the number of speakers) belong to Niger-Congo: Wolof in Senegal, Fulfulde spoken in various countries of Western and Central Africa, Manding, Akan, the largest language of Ghana, Yoruba and Igbo, major languages of Nigeria, Sango, the official language of the Central African Republic and a number of Bantu languages.
Nilo-Saharan: The approximately 196 languages of this group are spoken in widely scattered parts of Central and East Africa. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken in 15 countries. The demographically leading Nilo-Sharan languages are Kanuri-Kanembu (4,1 million speakers), Luo in Kenya (3,4 million speakers), and Songhay (3,2 million speakers) (Heine/Nurse 2000).
Khoisan: This group of about 35 languages, with over 100,000 speakers, represents the smallest of the four language phyla in Africa. It is scattered over a large part of South-West Africa. Khoisan languages are likely to have originally been spoken throughout most of southern Africa. Today, the majority of the Khoisan languages are found in Namibia and Botswana. There are also pockets of speakers in adjacent regions: southern Angola, Zambia, western Zimbabwe, and northern South Africa.
The
97 endangered languages listed in the map of Africa of the Atlas of the World’s languages in danger of disappearing belong to the following phyla:
Niger-Congo: Buy, Nalu, Mmani, Pana, Jeli, Animere, Shiki, Lere Cluster, Fyam, Defaka, Ilue, Kiong, Fali of Baissa, Fam, Kudu, Camo, Ziriya, Odut, Sheni, Undu-Rishi, Yangkam, Somyewe, Animere, Buga, Miri, Kamdang, Lumun, Homa, Eliri, Suba, Gweno, Kwisi,
Afroasiatic: Beni Snous, Awjilah, Siwa, Kubi, Ju, Ngwaba, Luri, Holma, Mbara, Mbaru, Kotoko de Koosseri, Maslam, Argobba, Quemant, Argobba, ‘Ongota,
Nilo-Saharan: Birgid, Birri, Thuri, Bongo, Tenet, Gule, Nyang’i, So, Shabo, Kwegu, Omo Murle, Bong’om, Terik, Sogoo, Omotik, Ongamo, Akie,
Khoisan: Kwadi, Deti, +Khomani, !Ora
Unclassified: Bete, Bubbure
A major problem concerning the safeguarding of linguistic diversity in Africa is the lack of documentation on languages and language speakers, and national linguistic policies that neglect the importance of African languages for development. The quality and quantity of documentation varies considerably from language to language. A minority of African languages have been documented or analysed to the extent of the better researched European or Asian languages. For a large number of languages, the only documentation available consists of an inadequate grammar, an analysis of parts of the language and one or two scientific articles. Others are documented only by a word list, if that.
The endangered languages presented in the online version of the Atlas of the World’s languages in danger of disappearing belong in majority to the last mentioned group. Very little material is available in general for these languages. The information given by the following language profiles and the references mentioned for further information are not yet complete. By making the African part of the Atlas also available on-line, UNESCO aims to complete the information given in the printed version, update it regularly, and also add new languages by using research data and information coming from linguists and other specialists.
Researchers all over the world are invited to comment on the existing information and to make available their research results for the users of the on-line-Atlas.
General publications
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Linguistic situation in Africa
Greenberg, J. H.. The languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1963.
Heine, B.. A typology of African languages based on the order of meaningful elements. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1976.
Mann, M. and D. Dalby. A thesaurus of African Languages. A classified and annotated inventory of the spoken languages of Africa. London/München/New York: Hans Zell Publishers, 1988.
Heine, B. and D. Nurse (ed.). African languages. An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Webb, V. and Kembo-Sure. African Voices. An introduction to the languages and linguistics of Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Grimes, B. F. (ed.). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Dallas/Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 2000.
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Language endangerment in Africa
Brenzinger, M. Language death: factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992.
Brenzinger, M. Endangered languages in Africa. Köln: Köppe, 1998.
Mous, M. “Loss of linguistic diversity in Africa”. In: Janse, M. and S. Tol (eds.). Language Death and Language Maintenance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003.
Sommer, G. “A survey on language death in Africa”. In: M. Brenzinger (ed.). Language death: factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992, 301-407.
Wurm, S. (ed.). Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2001.
