The Afroasiatic languages, also known as Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic, are a language family of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic branch.
The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.
The demography of Kenya is monitored by the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics. Kenya is a multi-ethnic state in East Africa. Its total population was at 47,558,296 as of the 2019 census.
Swahili, also known by its local name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique. Estimates of the number of Swahili speakers, including both native and second-language speakers, vary widely, generally ranging from 60 million to 150 million; most of its native speakers reside in Tanzania.
The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
Somali is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia, and by the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. Somali is an official language in both Somalia and Ethiopia, and serves as a national language in Djibouti, it is also a recognised minority language in Kenya. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic script and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.
Lowland East Cushitic is a group of roughly two dozen diverse languages of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Its largest representatives are Oromo and Somali.
In Uganda the most spoken language in the capital city is Luganda, followed by English, as all schools in Uganda use it in their studies due to the introduction of English during the colonial period. English is also the language of business and judicial matters. Most spoken after Luganda and English is Swahili. This language is more common in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania. Swahili is taught in schools as an optional additional language and it is mostly spoken by the Ugandan army. In 2005, there were talks to include Swahili as the second official language as it was seen as neutral, however this is still not ratified by the government. Swahili is used among some communities bordering South Sudan and Kenya.
The Rendille are a Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Eastern Province of Kenya.
The languages of Ethiopia include the official languages of Ethiopia, its national and regional languages, and a large number of minority languages, as well as foreign languages.
The main languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen, Nara, Saho, Afar, and Beja. The country's working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, English, and formely Italian.
The endoglossic language of Somalia has always been Somali, although throughout Somalia's history various exoglossic languages have also been used at a national level.
The population of Africa has grown rapidly over the past century and consequently shows a large youth bulge, further reinforced by a low life expectancy of below 50 years in some African countries. Total population as of 2024 is about 1.5 billion, with a growth rate of about 100 million every three years. The total fertility rate for Africa is 4.7 as of 2018, the highest in the world according to the World Bank. The most populous African country is Nigeria with over 206 million inhabitants as of 2020 and a growth rate of 2.6% p.a.
The Iraqw People are a Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the northern Tanzanian regions. They dwells in southwestern Arusha and Manyara regions of Tanzania, near the Rift Valley. The Iraqw people then settled in the southeast of Ngorongoro Crater in northern Karatu District, Arusha Region, where the majority of them still reside. In the Manyara region, the Iraqw are a major ethnic group, specifically in Mbulu District, Babati District and Hanang District.
Harold Crane Fleming was an American anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stressed the integration of physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems.
Rendille is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.
The Somali languages form a group that are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. They are spoken as a mother tongue by ethnic Somalis in Horn of Africa and the Somali diaspora. Even with linguistic differences, Somalis collectively view themselves as speaking dialects of a common language.
The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Africa, and Western Asia.
Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, none of which is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. Swahili and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule, are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than of English in Tanzania.
Cushitic-speaking peoples are the ethnolinguistic groups who speak Cushitic languages natively. Today, Cushitic languages are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north and south in Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania.
