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© Lonely Planet Publications
Africa
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Africa
BURKINA FASO Ni g
Niamey er
SAÕ TOME & PRINCIPÉ
GABON
Libreville
EQUATORIAL GUINEA Malabo
Gulf of Guinea
ngo
Bangui
Co
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
il
e
i
DJIBOUTI
V ictoria
KE N YA
Turkan a
Oman
Qatar U.A.E.
Iran
Turkmenistan
Mogadishu
IND IA N OCEA N
SO M ALIA
Suqutra G u l f o f (Yemen) Aden Djibouti
Yemen
Saudi Arabia
Iraq
Armenia Azerbaijan
E T H IO P IA
Tana
Asmara
ERITRE A
Addis Ababa
UGANDA Kampala
te
SUDAN
Khartoum
N
Nas s e r
EGYPT
ile
A FRI C A – AT A GL ANC E
Conakry Freetown
CHAD Njadema
Yaounde
C h ad
N IGE R
LIBYA
Cairo
Syria
Israel & the Jordan Palestinian Territories
Cyprus Lebanon
Turkey
e N
BENIN N I G E RI A CÔTE Abuja D’IVOIRE TOGO Yamoussoukro V o lt a SIERRA LEONE GHANA Monrovia Cotonou Accra Lomé LIBERIA CAMEROON
Ouagadougou
Bamako
MALI
Greece
rr Tunis an ean S ea TUNISIA Tripoli
Italy
Bl u
GUINEA-BISSAU GUINE A
Banjul GAMBIA Bissau
SENEGAL
Nouakchott
AL G E RI A
Algiers
Me dit
a
Dakar
Spain
MOROCCO
Rabat
M AU RI TA N I A
Canary Islands (Spain)
Madeira (Portugal)
N O R T H Portugal AT L AN T I C O C E AN
Nile
L ANGUAGE MAP
Se
Nl e
e d
W hi
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French
Arabic
Amharic
Afrikaans
b
Maputo
MAURITIUS Port Louis
RÉUNION
St-Denis
Portuguese Shona
Note: Language areas are Xhosa approximate only. For more detail see the relevant introduction.
Zulu Wolof
Malagasy
Yoruba
Antananarivo
MADAGASCAR
Swahili
LESOTHO
SWAZILAND
Maseru
Mbabane
am
Mamoudzou
COMOROS
MAYOT TE
SEYCHELLES
Victoria
Hausa
S OU T H A F R ICA
Bloemfontein
L i mp
Tshwane (Pretoria)
BOTSWANA Gaborone
Lilongwe
Moroni
Pemba Zanzibar Mafia
MOZAMBIQUE Z
ZIMBABWE
Harare
K ariba
o
Cape Town
Lusaka
Lua l a b
Z A M BIA
Malaw i
MALAWI
op
L AN GUAGE MAP
1000 km 500 mi
Windhoek
N A MIBIA
A NGOL A
i
0 0
SO U TH AT L AN TI C O C EA N
Luanda
Nairobi Dodoma
TA N Z A N IA
CONGO DEMOCRATIC RWANDA REPUBLIC BURUNDI OF CONGO Tan gan yika Kinshasa (ZAÏRE)
Brazzaville
A FRI C A – AT A GL ANC E
M o za Ch mb an iqu ne e l
a
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In addition to its many other attractions, Africa offers incredible linguistic diversity. Most African languages belong to one of the following four language families: AfroAsiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo (with the Bantu languages as the major branch) and Khoisan. In addition, the languages of Madagascar belong to the Austronesian language family. Even though the number of languages spoken in Africa is huge (around 1000), most of them have less than a million speakers. On the other hand, more prominent languages usually also serve as regional lingua francas – such as Swahili in East Africa. Luckily for English speakers, most African languages use Roman script and there’s a general correspondence between the pronunciation and the written form of words. Arabic has a particularly important status in the north and northeast of the continent, due to its proximity to the Middle East and the Arab conquests of North Africa from the 7th century. Among the African languages, Amharic is linguistically closest to Arabic, as they both belong to the Semitic group of the Afro-Asiatic family. In addition, they’re both script languages, but the two scripts are quite different. Due to the 19th-century European colonisation of Africa, a few European languages (particularly English, French and Portuguese) are still influential in various African countries and even share official status with native African languages. English is predominantly represented in the east and the south, French in the north and the west, and Portuguese in the east and the west of the continent. A unique linguistic feature of Africa is Afrikaans, which belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It was created as a result of the 17thcentury Dutch colonisation of the south of the continent. Although still very similar to Dutch, Afrikaans is now considered a language in its own right.
did you know? • The African Union (AU) was established in 2000 by the adoption of the Constitutive Act at the Lome Summit (Togo). It developed from the African Economic Community and the Organisation of African Unity. It has 53 member states, covering the entire continent except for Morocco. The AU is governed by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government and the Pan-African Parliament. • The home of the AU is Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The AU anthem is the song ‘Let Us All Unite and Celebrate Together’. The AU flag combines green, yellow and gold colours, with the emblem showing the African continent in the middle. • The official languages of the AU are all African languages, as well as Arabic, English, French and Portuguese. The African Academy of Languages (founded in 2001) strives to preserve African languages and promote their use among the African people.
AF R I CA – AT A GLAN C E
A FRI C A – AT A G LAN C E
africa – at a glance
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