page_title: Languages of Africa
section_title: Official languages
hierarchical_section_title: Languages of Africa / Language in Africa / Official languages
context_page_description: The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
  Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa.
  Afroasiatic languages are spread throughout Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel.
  Indo-European languages are spoken in South Africa and Namibia and are used as lingua francas in the former colonies of Britain and Liberia that was part of American Colonization Society, former colonies of France and of Belgium, former colonies of Portugal, former colonies of Italy, former colonies of Spain and the current Spanish territories of Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands.
  Various families of Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken from Tanzania to Eritrea and Sudan and from Chad to Mali.
  Austronesian languages are spoken in Madagascar.
  Khoe–Kwadi languages are spoken principally in Namibia and Botswana.
  There are several other small families and language isolates, as well as creoles and languages that have yet to be classified. In addition, Africa has a wide variety of sign languages, many of which are language isolates.
context_section_description: Besides the former colonial languages of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, the following languages are official at the national level in Africa (non-exhaustive list):
  Afroasiatic
  Arabic in Algeria, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia and Zanzibar (Tanzania)
  Berber in Morocco and Algeria
  Amharic in Ethiopia
  Somali in Somalia, Djibouti, and Ethiopia
  Tigrinya in Eritrea and Tigray (Ethiopia)
  Austronesian
  Malagasy in Madagascar
  French Creole
  Seychelles Creole in Seychelles
  Indo-European
  Afrikaans in South Africa
  Niger-Congo
  Chewa in Malawi and Zimbabwe
  Comorian in the Comoros
  Kinyarwanda in Rwanda
  Kirundi in Burundi
  Sesotho in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe
  Setswana/Tswana in Botswana and South Africa
  Shona, Sindebele in Zimbabwe
  Sepedi in South Africa
  Ndebele in South Africa
  Swahili in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda
  Swati in Eswatini (Swaziland) and South Africa
  Tsonga in South Africa
  Venda in South Africa
  Xhosa in South Africa
  Zulu in South Africa
caption: Official languages in Africa:                Afrikaans  Portuguese   Arabic  Spanish   English  Swahili   French  other languages