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There are 1,250 to 2,100 and by some counts over 3,000 languages spoken natively in Africa, in several major language families: *Afroasiatic is spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel *Nilo-Saharan is centered on Sudan and Chad (disputed validity) *Niger–Congo (Bantu and non-Bantu) covers West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa *Khoe is concentrated in the deserts of Namibia and Botswana *Austronesian is spoken in Madagascar. *Indo-European is spoken on the southern tip of the continent. There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as obscure languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates. About a hundred of the languages of Africa are widely used for inter-ethnic communication. Arabic, Somali, Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Swahili, Hausa, Igbo, Fulani and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people. If clusters of up to a hundred similar languages are counted together, twelve are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2004 )〕 The high linguistic diversity of many African countries (Nigeria alone has over 500 languages,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ethnologue report for Nigeria )〕 one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world) has made language policy a vital issue in the post-colonial era. In recent years, African countries have become increasingly aware of the value of their linguistic inheritance. Language policies being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. For example, all African languages are considered official languages of the African Union (AU). 2006 was declared by the African Union as the "Year of African Languages".〔(African Union Summit 2006 ) Khartoum, Sudan. SARPN.〕 However, although many mid-sized languages are used on the radio, in newspapers, and in primary-school education, and some of the larger ones are considered national languages, only a few are official at the national level. ==Language groups== Most languages spoken in Africa belong to one of three large language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Niger–Congo. Another hundred belong to small families such as Ubangian (sometimes grouped within Niger-Congo) and the various families called Khoisan, or the Indo-European and Austronesian language families which originated outside Africa; the presence of the latter two dates to 2,600 and 1,500 years ago, respectively. In addition, the languages of Africa languages include several unclassified languages and sign languages. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Languages of Africa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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