| This map shows the areas on the African continent in which each family of indigenous African languages predominates. The languages of the Afro-Asiatic group, which include Arabic and Hausa, and those of the Nilo-Saharan group, which are spoken primarily around the upper Bamingui and Nile rivers, prevail in northern Africa. The remainder of the continent is dominated by languages of the Niger-Congo branch, such as Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Swahili, Xhosa, and Rwanda. The languages of the smaller Khoisan family, easily recognizable by their clicking sounds, are spoken in only a few areas and by several thousand people. |
