Lonely Planet Publications. Africa. phrasebooks

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© Lonely Planet Publications

Africa

phrasebooks

29/03/2007 2:34:19 PM

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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