Languages of Africa
Africa
More than a thousand African languages are spoken. Although more than 50 surpass 500,000 speakers each, relatively few people speak most of these languages. In addition to Arabic, the most spoken are Swahili and Hausa. The main families or linguistic groups are: the Congo-Kordofan and the Nilo-Saharan, the two largest groups with more than 160 million speakers each; the Camito-Semitic, or Afro-Asian, which is concentrated in the north and northwest of Africa; and that of the Lebanese Khoisan, who speak the Sans and Khoikhoi of South Africa. Many Africans, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, are bilingual: they speak their native language just as the first European colonial governments did.
The Christianity
Funeral dance Dogon
Population in Africa. Image E. Buchot
Christianity, the most widespread religion, was introduced into North Africa in the first century and extended to the Sudan and the Ethiopian regions in the fourth century. Christianity survived in Ethiopia thanks to the Coptic Church, but in other areas it was replaced by Islam. It was reintroduced and spread through tropical Africa with the development of European expansion overseas from the fifteenth century. Today, Protestant and Catholic groups are represented equally throughout the continent.
The Islam
Islam, the second most widespread religion in Africa, was introduced throughout northern Africa in the seventh century and spread over the eastern coast and grasslands of West Africa over the following centuries. Throughout the 20th century, Islam was introduced to the rest of the continent. The oldest Muslim legal school, called maliki, prevails in most of Muslim Africa, except in Egypt, the Horn of Africa and the East African coast.
The primitive religions
Primitive religions are widespread (see Religion: Primitive Religions). Nearly 15% of African peoples practice animistic or local religions. Although there is a great variety, they tend to have a single god or creator and several subordinate spirits - spirits of nature that inhabit trees, water, animals and any other element or natural phenomenon - and ancestral spirits, such as the founders of the family, the lineage or the clan - which influence daily life. Certain animistic religious movements mix Orthodox Christian rites with tribal religious beliefs. Guided by their own prophets, these groups have spread throughout Africa, although they seem more widespread and powerful in Central Africa and southern Africa. There are small Jewish communities in the north and south of Africa, and the Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist cults are widespread in eastern and southern Africa. "Africa".