2006-06-29 16:10:20 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Swahili is the most useful language in East Africa and the number of speakers is growing at the expense of smaller languages. In Moslem West Africa, Hausa is the largest language in terms of number of speakers and it is growing as well, while smaller languages become extinct. In southern Africa, Zulu is the largest language.
2006-06-29 16:48:53 · answer #1 · answered by Taivo 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Swahili is spoken by more than 50 million people up and down the eastern part of Africa, from around Ethiopia to Rwanda. Like English, Spanish and Arabic, it has a "common" pronunciation and vocabulary, plus local inflections and dialects. If one spoke common Swahili, one could travel with little difficulty across 10-20 countries.
2006-06-30 11:43:59 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Even within countries with their own official "native language," there are many different tribal languages present.
However, most of the tribal languages are related to a large extent -- like Spanish and Italian -- allowing a fair amount of understanding in communication. Most of these are called "Bantu languages" because they share many of the same or similar words, the same cojugational rules, and much the same origin.
The most common language used on that continent, in my experience, is French. Although the countries are (mostly) not colonize anymore, the use of French as a trade language helps things to run more smoothly. Even in the countries that have a tribal language and English as their "official languages," there are a large number of students who are learning French in the classroom for years until they have basic fluency.
For the previous answerer, just for information... Afrikaans is the name of the language in South Africa. It took me a while to understand also, until I saw it written.
2006-06-29 23:21:54 · answer #3 · answered by weilder 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hello,
It really depends on what Country, because there are lots of languages Swahili is popular in East Africa, Some west african countries like Nigeria speak Yoruba, Hausa,etc
so it depends
2006-06-30 04:33:21 · answer #4 · answered by kida_w 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Swahili. It's spoken throughout Kenya and Tanzania. It's easy to learn. It's got quite a few Arabic words.
2006-06-29 23:41:04 · answer #5 · answered by zee_prime 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Swahili?
2006-06-29 23:16:09 · answer #6 · answered by lincseagles 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
either zimbabwe or AFRIKAN (real language) but what do i know? i'm just some white guy who has a few friends from africa
2006-06-29 23:14:57 · answer #7 · answered by Friendly Neighbor 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋