III.

The Afro-Asiatic Family

The almost 400 Afro-Asiatic languages (formerly known as Hamito-Semitic) constitute the most important group of languages spoken in northern Africa. The Semitic branch of the family includes languages spoken in Asia as well as in Africa, hence the revised name. The many Arabic languages, the leading members of this branch, are the major languages of North Africa and of the Republic of Sudan. Amharic (see Semitic Languages), which is spoken by around 21 million people, is the official language of Ethiopia. The national book of Ethiopia, Kebra nagast (The Glory of the Kings), is written in ancient Ethiopic, or Ge'ez, now no longer spoken. Ge^'ez literature also includes several books of the Apocrypha not preserved in any other language. Other Semitic languages spoken in North Africa include Tigrigna and Tigre in Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Languages of the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family are spoken by a substantial portion of the population in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; by scattered groups elsewhere in North Africa; and along the southern fringes of the Sahara Desert in western Africa. The Cushitic branch, confined to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, and Tanzania, includes such major languages as Oromo and Somali. The ancient Egyptian language, which has no living descendant, forms another branch of the Afro-Asiatic family on its own (see Coptic Language).

A number of languages spoken largely in northern Nigeria form another Afro-Asiatic grouping, known as the Chadic branch. By far the most important Chadic language is Hausa, one of the two most common languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Hausa is widely used in education and trade, even in regions far beyond its original borders. A number of Hausa newspapers are published and there is a considerable body of Hausa literature.