what languages do africans speak?
2024-09-23
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what is the first impression of africa? some people will say "hot", some will immediately think of the endless desert, and some will think of the vast grassland and the "king of the grassland" lion.
how much do you know about the languages of this continent?
there are many ethnic groups and tribes in africa, and the number of languages is extremely rich. it is estimated that there are 800 to 1,000 languages that can be used independently, and swahili is one of them.
swahili is a language that chinese people are less exposed to, and some people may have never heard of it. it belongs to the bantu language branch and is a true "native" african language. it was named after the swahili people in east africa, and its original meaning is "coast". it is the official language of east african community countries such as kenya, tanzania and uganda, and has more than 150 million users. if you travel to east africa, you might as well learn a few common swahili phrases, such as "jambo" or "habari" when greeting people.
everyone must have a deep impression of the disney cartoon "the lion king". the film is set in the african savannah, and swahili elements can be seen everywhere. the name of the little lion king simba, simba, means "lion" in swahili. many people have learned a philosophical saying in the film - "hakuna matata", and the episode of the same name often appears in disney theme parks and other occasions. when i first heard it, i thought it was a mysterious spell, but later i figured out that it was swahili, which roughly means "don't worry" and "don't worry". the names of almost all the characters in the film are taken from swahili, except simba. his wife nala's name means "gift", his father mufasa is "king", and his mother sarabi is "vision".
other major native languages in africa include hausa and amharic. hausa belongs to the semito-hamitic language family, also known as the afro-asiatic language family. it is the language of the hausa people, and its speakers are mainly distributed in north africa. it has about 54 million native speakers and about 34 million people who speak it as a second language. amharic, also a member of the afro-asiatic language family, is the federal working language of ethiopia, named after the country's amhara region where its speakers were originally mainly distributed. it has about 33.7 million native speakers and 25.1 million people who speak it as a second language. if you want to greet someone, the hausa and amharic words are sannu and selam respectively, which are roughly equivalent to the english "hello".
in addition, due to historical reasons, western languages such as english, french, and portuguese are also commonly used in africa, and are even official languages in some countries. for example, in kenya, swahili is the national language and is the official language along with english. 45% of the people in the country believe in protestantism and 33% believe in catholicism. this country was assigned to britain as early as 1890 and was once under british rule for a long time, so the people generally speak fluent and authentic english. in general, there are 22 countries in africa that use english as the official language, and 5 countries that use english as the common language; there are 21 countries that use french as the official language, and 5 countries that use portuguese as the official language.
this is truly a magical continent. (ren ke)
