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Critical Analysis, Introduction and Classification of African Languages and Literature
Introduction
Have you ever listened to the speech of people from a neighbouring town of yours? Can you
understand or speak the language they speak? Is it similar or different from yours? If you are
born in any one of the countries of Africa, you are likely to be amazed about the different
languages of people
...

Africa, as a continent, has more than 50 countries (54) with diverse languages, some indigenous
to her and some adopted as a result of colonisation and some of these languages are used as
lingua franca for commerce, trade and official transaction
...
It is said to have between 1250-3000 native languages
...
Define language
ii
...
Explain major African languages
iv
...
List the common dialects in Africa
vi
...
Identify the locations and countries where the official languages are spoken
viii
...
Enumerate Francophone African Countries
x
...
Societies and cultures thrive because the means
of communication is language
...
Human beings are the only species that
are known to have developed this advanced communication competence through language
...
This can be seen in education
with notions such as pedagogy and teaching practice; social work with terms like social case
work, group work and community organisation; laboratory science, physiotherapy,
occupational therapy, law, medicine, nursing, engineering, architecture, urban and regional
planning, management science, physics, chemistry, pharmacy, just to mention a few, similarly
have their peculiar languages
...
Written
language is discernible in the established professions and the latter literature in “primitive
societies”
...
Once
upon a time, students and pupils are punished for speaking their mothers‟ tongues under the
guise of „vernacular language‟
...


Ideally, African literature should develop in indigenous African languages
...


One of the flip sides of using the foreign language is that it has enabled Africans to reach out
beyond the shores of Africa for commerce and trade
...
Indeed, a piece of literary work written in a
non-indigenous language can justifiably be regarded as “African” only if it mirrors African
culture, thought and perception of the world, life and existence
...
It is a medium of talking or writing
...


It is possible that such complexity may not be discernible in some languages as some languages
are not well developed in written forms
...
Only those trained in such languages can deploy such means of symbolisation and
communication with the physically challenged
...


Language is, therefore, defined by some combination of: having national status, being written,
or unwritten, being the standard form of a range of speech varieties, not being intelligible to
speakers of other „languages‟ and having a relatively large number of native speakers
...


MAJOR AFRICAN LANGUAGES
It is important to take cognizance of the fact that there were major African languages which
dominated the pre-colonial era, though in most geographic locations they still serve as major
means of communication
...
This can be observed from the great number of states colonised by the
British and the French
...


HOW MANY AFRICAN LANGUAGES ARE THERE?
It is rhetorical to ask someone: „do you speak African language?‟ as if there were but a single
African language
...
Excluding languages introduced over the past two millennia
or so, such as Arabic, Malagasy, Afrikaans, English, Spanish, Portuguese, this figure of just
over 2000 is conservative
...
Niger-Congo: 1436 languages (including the Bantu family)
ii
...
Nilo-Saharan: 196 languages
iv
...


CLASSIFICATION OF AFRICAN LANGUAGE
Granted that there were and still are varieties and diversity in linguistic affiliations in Africa, a
rational classification of languages in Africa was proposed by Joseph Greenberg (1950) as
comprising four large phyla:
1
...
Nilo-Saharan
3
...
Khoisan

i
...
The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world‟s major language
families, and Africa‟s largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number
of distinct languages
...
Most of the widely spoken indigenous languages of Sub-Saharan Africa
belong to this group
...
The
most widely spoken Niger-Congo languages by number of speakers are Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani
and Shona
...
This group has
some common features such as: Phonology, Consonant and Vowel systems, Nasality, Tone etc
(Ninalowo and Badru, 2012)
...
NILO-SAHARAN LANGUAGE
The Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by about 50 million people, mainly in the upper part
of the Chad and Nile rivers (hence the term “Nilo-”), including historic Nubia, north of where
the two tributaries of Nile meet
...
The largest parts of its major
subfamilies are found in the modern nation of Sudan, through which the Nile River flows in all
its manifestations: the White and Blue Nile, which join to form the main Nile at Khartoum
...


iii
...
Afro-asiatic is one of the
four language families of Africa identified by Greenberg in his book: The Languagesof
Africa(1963)
...


The Afro-asiatic languages constitute one of the world’s largest language families with about
375 living languages and more than 350 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, the
Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia, as well as parts of the Sahel, and East Africa
...
Hausa is one
of the prominent Nigerian language in this phylum (Ninalowo and Badru, 2012)
...
KHOISAN LANGUAGES
The Khoisan languages (also called the Khoesaan in literature) are the snap languages of Africa
which do not belong to other language families
...
In Southern Africa, their speakers are
the Khoi and Bushmen (Saan), and in East Africa, we have the Sandawe and Hadza
...
They are currently restricted to the Kalahari
Desert, primarily in Namibia and Botswana, and to the Rift Valley in central Tanzania
...
Most have no
written record
...


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES IN AFRICA
Language is the process of communicating thought and feelings through the use of sound,
speech or symbols
...
It is used in

every social setting such as school, media and organisation and at individual level
...
Some of the official languages include English, French, Arabic, Portuguese and
Swahili
...
It is also an official
or semi-official language of many countries such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa
...


Table 1: Examples of Countries where English is the mainstream language
S/N

Country

Official Language(s)

Capital

1

Liberia

English

Monrovia

2

Gambia

English

Banjul

3

Sierra

English

Freetown

Leone
4

Ghana

English

Accra

5

Mauritius

English and French

Port Louis

6

Zambia

English

Lusaka

7

Namibia

English

Windhoek

8

Nigeria

English

Abuja

French Speaking Countries in Africa (Francophone countries)
French is the second most studied foreign language in the world, after English
...
7%) and Cote d‟Ivoire (70%)
...
Table 2 provides an
insight to the countries, their capital and the official language(s) spoken therein
...
Although only 15-20 million people
speak it as their native language, Swahili is a national or official language of three nations:
Tanzania, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...


Table 3: Examples of Countries where Kiswahili is the mainstream language
S/N

Country

Official Language(s)

1

Burundi

French,

Capital

Kirundi, Bujumbura

Kiswahili
2

Tanzania

Kiswahili and English

Dar es Salaam;
Dodoma
(administrative)

3

Uganda

English,

Kiswahili, Kampala

Luganda, Luo
4

Kenya

Kiswahili and English

Nairobi

Countries where Portuguese is an official language (Lusophone countries)
Portuguese Language is one of the romance languages, which developed from Latin, and the
official language of Portugal as well as of former Portuguese colonies and territories, including
Angola, Cape Verde, Guines-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe
...
They are
spoken by more than 230 million people as a first language, most of whom live in the Middle
East and North Africa
...
Modern
Standard Arabic is widely taught in schools, universities, and used in workplaces, government
and the media
...
)

French

Libya

Arabic

Tripoli/
Benghazi

7

Western Sahara

Arabic

El Aiun

8

Djibouti

Arabic

Djibouti

9

Mauritania

Arabic and Nouakchott
French

10

Sudan

Arabic

Khartoum

CATEGORIES OF NIGERIAN LANGUAGES
Nigeria, with six-geo-political zones, 36 states, 774 Local Governments, is one of the largest
countries in Africa and has multiple languages and dialects
...

Language is the vessel in which the thought of preceding generation and the culture of our
ancestors are stored
...
By participating in a linguistic universe, we are part

of a linguistic community
...
Without a common language,
people could never have attained solidarity and consensus; and without this collective tool, no
social order is possible (Ninalowo and Badru, 2012)
...
Major languages spoken in Nigeria are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulfulde,
Kanuri and Ibibio
...
Among these, the northern Nigerian
languages are Kanuri, Tiv, Hausa while the languages spoken in southern part of the country
are Igbo, Edo, Yoruba, and Ibibio
...
Nigerian languages can be
broadly categorized into two types and they are Niger-Congo languages and Afro-Asiatic
languages
...
They predominate in central and southern Nigeria, the main branches represented
in Nigeria are Mande, Atlantic, Gur, Kwa, Benue-Congo and Adamawa- Ubangian
...
Yoruba is spoken as well as ritual
language in cults such as Santeria in the Caribbean and south-central America including Brazil
...


AFRO-ASIATIC LANGUAGES OF NIGERIA
The Afro-Asiatic language of Nigeria is divided into Chadic, Semitic and Berber
...
Semitic is represented by various dialects of
Arabic in the northeast and Berber by the Tuareg-speaking communities in the extreme
northwest
...
Hausa has,
therefore, emerged as a lingua franca throughout much of West Africa and the Sahel in
particular
...
Hausa is the official
language of a number of states in northern Nigeria and the most important dialect, which is the
standard variety used for official purposes
...
This dialect includes some spoken
in Zaria and Bauchi, the western one includes Sakkwatanchi spoken in Sokoto, Kastinanchi
spoken in Kastina, Arewanchi in both Hobir and Adar, Kebbi and Zamfara
...

Although the number of languages currently estimated and catalogued in Nigeria is 521, this

number includes 510 living languages, two second languages without native speakers and 9
extinct languages
...
The
official language of Nigeria is English
...
Though most ethnic groups prefer to communicate
in their own languages, English, being the official language, is widely used for education,
business transactions and for official purposes
...
The major widely spoken being Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba
...
Let us describe the major languages spoken in Nigeria
...


Yoruba
Yoruba (native name: ede Yoruba, „the Yoruba language‟) is a Niger-Congo language spoken
in West Africa by approximately 20million speakers
...
The ancestor of the Yoruba speakers is, according to the oral traditions,
Oduduwa
...
It is more widely related to other Nigerian Niger-Congo languages including
Edo, Igbo and Nupe
...


Efik or Ibibio-Efik

This is the major member of the Benin-Congo language family
...
Ibibio is a dialect cluster spoken by about 31/2
million people of Akwa Ibom state and Cross River state of Nigeria, making it sixth largest
language
...

The Efik language is spoken across the coastal southeastern part of Nigeria and includes the
dialects Ibibio, Annang, and Efik proper
...
The Adamawa-Ubangian languages are spoken between central Nigeria and the
Central African Republic
...
Hausa has, therefore, emerged as a
lingua franca throughout much of West Africa and the Sahel in particular
...
Hausa is the official language of a number state in
northern Nigeria and the most important dialect, which is generally regarded as that spoken in
Kano
...

Eastern dialects also include some dialects spoken in Zaria and Bauchi; the Western Hausa
dialects also include Sakkwatanchi spoken in Sokoto, Kastinanchi spoken in Kastina,
Arewanchi in both Hobir and Adar, Kebbi and Zamfara
...
It belongs to the
western Saharan subphylum of Kanuri
...


The Kanuri languages are African languages spoken by some 50million people, mainly in the
upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two
tributaries of Nile meet
...


Igbo
(Igbo: Asusu Igbo) is a native language of Igbo people, an ethnic group which is primarily
located in the southeastern Nigeria
...
There are over 20 Igbo dialects
...
I posited that language is a major vehicle of
communication among human beings
...
Greenberg‟s typology was used to explicate
the four phyla of language groups in Africa: These are Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic and Khoisan
...
The study session described major languages and dialects in Nigeria

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