My local newspaper carried a report on a school where 17 different languages are spoken. One of those was simply African. I have heard of Afrikaan, but anybody know of African
Thanks
TB.
2007-01-07 22:57:00 · 23 answers · asked by TractorBoy 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
no there is no such language as african.
2007-01-07 22:58:02 · answer #1 · answered by Not Ecky Boy 6 · 4⤊ 0⤋
No, there is no such language as "African", it could either be Afrikaans or just a grouping of many minor languages spoken in Africa, for example if they are giving percentages of people who speak the language many African languages would have less than 1% and so may be grouped together in a generic "African language" group that refers to all the many minor languages spoken by different tribes. I would say it is probably more likely to be this second definition but then I have not seen the book you are referring to so can't say for sure. I would assume though that someone writing a book would know how to spell Afrikaans but then that might just be that I am South African and have many Afrikaans friends.
2007-01-08 11:27:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No - there are hundreds, if not thousands, of African languages but there isn't one called African. That would be as absurd as suggesting there is a language called European!
You must be thinking of Afrikaans. It is one of the many languages spoken in South Africa, and it is very much like Dutch, because that is the language that evolved when Dutch settlers went to SA.
2007-01-08 16:02:26 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is no single language called "African". The newspaper probably misspelled "Afrikaans" (which is one of the languages in South Africa).
If the list doesn't contain a separate "Afrikaans" entry, assume "African" means "Afrikaans". If the list contains "Afrikaans" *and* "African", then something strange is going on!
2007-01-08 07:12:44 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A language named African doesn't exist.
Instead Afrikaans language (or Afrikaner) exists. It is a language spoken in South Africa and derived from XVII cent Dutch (South Africa was colonized by Dutches before than British).
2007-01-08 07:49:48 · answer #5 · answered by ? 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I remember taking a class in the political science of Africa (mostly South Africa) and Bantu was the language that most widely represented an African tounge. Oh! yes, but, no language called African that I have heard of.
2007-01-08 16:03:11 · answer #6 · answered by madchriscross 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
there are many language in Africa, from the west coast, central,east ,south, and nord, each with different tongue, therefore we use english and french for interraction also we have few portugues,is all i have for you answer,no language is called African unless the south African have have what their call Afrikaaner language that was tought in school during apathed for easy communication betwen the white and black,normaly it was impose to the blacks.
2007-01-08 07:17:58 · answer #7 · answered by ALLEN A 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Afrikaan sure but certainly not African.
2007-01-09 18:29:16 · answer #8 · answered by Ama 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Africans or Afrikaner is the language spoken by dutch descendants in South Africa
2007-01-08 10:29:05 · answer #9 · answered by M.M.D.C. 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, no such language, Afrikaans maybe and there are many others but not just African.
2007-01-08 07:06:49 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. I think someone wrote "Afrikaans", and the spell checker didn't recognise it, and changed it to African, and the poor boob at the keyboard wasn't confident enough to tell the spell checker to ignore it.
2007-01-08 07:34:39 · answer #11 · answered by Spell Check! 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋