5 Luscious Languages Spoken in Africa That You Oughta Know

5 Luscious Languages Spoken in Africa That You Oughta Know 5 Luscious Languages Spoken in Africa That You Oughta Know Guys, Africa is a huge continent.I mean, really hugeâ€"more so than you might expect. We’re talking a continent as big as the U.S., India, China and most of Europe combined.For us language enthusiasts, that means more languages than you can count. Africa is a veritable buffet for the language learner. In fact, its estimated that there may be over 3,000 languages spoken in Africa!Unfortunately, I’ve found that, in online language learning communities, African languages are widely overlooked when someone is choosing a second or third language.We’re all familiar with the major European languagesâ€"Spanish, French, German, etc.â€"and East Asian languages like Korean,  Chinese and Japanese. Those are typically the most popular to pick.But African languages are awesome, too. Theyre invaluable for travelers,  professionals in the business world  and anyone with curiosity about the world, its languages and its cultures. We should really all be picking up more of these great languages!S o, let’s take a little trip through Africa and talk about why five of the most-spoken languages there are beyond cool.Of course, English is widely spoken in Africa, too, but we won’t cover that, since you’ve apparently picked up enough English to read this article. 5 Luscious Languages Spoken in Africa That You Oughta Know1. ArabicArabic is a huge language, fit for a huge continent.If you decide to learn Arabic, well, you’ll probably get more bang for your buck than you even thought possible.Arabic is a Semitic language, and it’s spoken by 280 million native speakers worldwide. As far as Africa is concerned, Arabic is an official language in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Eritrea the list goes on! Its also widely spoken in countries where it hasnt yet been recognized as an official language.Arabic comes in a number of flavorsâ€"to start out, youll choose between Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial dialects. If you learn Modern Standard Arabic, you’ll be able to communicate with most  Arabic speakers around the world. Modern Standard Arabic is the written form of the languageâ€"this is the Arabic used in news articles, online and in novels. It’s spoken  in newscasts and in some TV shows.However, this is not the form of Arabic that native speakers always learn as children. They learn various dialects of Arabic, unique to their regions. Some of these dialects are more mutually intelligible (speakers of different dialects can understand each other) than others, but learning, say, Moroccan or Egyptian Colloquial Arabic gets you deeply connected with a culture in a way that Modern Standard Arabic can’t.So, if you get really into Arabic, youll want to learn Modern Standard first, and then adopt a colloquial dialect of your choice!How to Learn ArabicSo you wanna get started learning Arabic? Check out Stanford University’s Arabic Department site  for  more information on how to learn all aspects of the language, beginning with the bas ics.If you want to put your efforts into learning a dialect, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is a great place to start if you don’t have a specific country in mindâ€"it’s the most spoken dialect. Browse  this textbook  for Egyptian Colloquial basics.And what about the script? To readers of the Latin alphabet, Arabic looks incomprehensible. For starters, it’s written only in cursive, there are multiple forms of each letter and there are no vowels! What to do?Well, let me tell you, learning to read Arabic is far easier than it looks. Give it a week, set some time aside to copy each letter down and, believe me, you’ll be sounding out texts before you know it.Youll probably also be pretty psyched to hear that FluentU is developing an Arabic program for the website, Android App and iPhone App. In the meantime, you can follow the FluentU  Arabic Language and Culture Blog  and subscribe to our newsletters for loads of fun, modern language lessons.2. SwahiliSecond on our list is Swahili, known as Kiswahili in the language itself.Swahili  is a Bantu language  widely spoken in the  African Great Lakes region, which comprises of a huge swath of Central, Southern and East African. Theres  also a huge number of Swahili speakers in countries adjacent to the Great Lakes region.With Swahili under your belt, youll be able to visit gorgeous countries like  Tanzania and Kenya, where Swahili is an official language. Swahili will also help you get around parts of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While it’s natively spoken by 15 million people, there are more than 150 million speakers total, and it’s a common second language throughout this region!Swahili is quite appealing  to many language learners due to the fact that it’s widely spoken and for its history. Kiswahili (the name of the language in Swahili) means “coastal language, and it’s a trade language that was created to facilitate communications between a number of So uthern and Eastern Africa’s wide variety of ethnic groups.It’s also not too hard for English speakers to learnâ€"unlike many African languages, Swahili doesn’t use tones and, unlike Arabic and Amharic, it uses the Latin alphabet. If you do know some Arabic then you have a good head start, as there are tons of Arabic loanwords in Swahili.What’s more, I guarantee you already know a handful of Swahili words. Why? The writers of Disney’s The Lion King had a bit of a love affair with Swahili. Hakuna Matata? Thats Swahili for “no worries!” Simba? Swahili for “lion!”How to Learn  SwahiliIf you want to get into the basics of Swahili, try BBC’s guide to pick up some vocabulary and greetings. And here’s a fun song to practice those greetings!3. HausaNext up is this beautiful Chadic language spoken in Nigeria and Niger by a whopping 39 million people.It’s also spoken by plenty of other people in West Africa, and in fact, Hausa serves as a lingua franca for Muslim popula tions in this region. Its widely understood, so itll get you pretty far in West Africa!Hausa is written in both the Arabic script and the Latin alphabet. However, the Latin alphabet, called Boko, tends to be the main script used these days among Hausa speakers.Hausa is a tonal language, but don’t let that put you off. Each of the five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) can either have a high or low pitch. While these tones may be marked in learning materials that use Latin text, everyday writing does not use any diacritics.How to Learn HausaTo get started, begin  loading up on audio and video resources. Plenty of listening can help you manage tones and gain a good sense of how the language sounds.Radio is great for the purpose of learning and reinforcing tonal sounds, and stations like  BBC,  Radio France Internationale,  Voice of America  and  24 Deutsche Welle  broadcast in Hausa.To really take off on your Hausa learning journey, try the basic lessons provided at Teach Yourself Hausa.4. Amh aricAmharic is a rich and ancient Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia.It’s related to Arabic and Hebrew, and with 22 million native speakers it’s the second most widely spoken Semitic language after Arabic.Amharic is gorgeous when spoken, and its even more stunning when written in its unique script. It uses an alphasyllabary called fidelâ€"basically, each “letter” represents a consonant/vowel combination, but the forms of the consonants and vowels change depending on the combinations.Learning to write fidel might take a little longer than learning the Arabic script, but it’s still well within reach of the average learner. Try taking advantage of tools like SRS (Spaced Repetition Systems)  to efficiently memorize each letter and its various combinations.Amharic is also host to a growing body of Ethiopian literature. Poetry and novels are both popular, and learning Amharic will open the door to experiencing literature far different from that of the rest of the world. Once yo u have the basics down, try your hand at reading the most famous Amharic novel, Fiqir Iske Meqabir  (translated into English as Love Unto Crypt) by Haddis Alemayehu.Getting started with Amharic has never been easier. Learn some phrases and basic vocab at Amharic Teacher, and listen to Australia’s SBS Amharic stream here.5. FrenchFrench hardly needs an introduction, since it’s no stranger to the aspiring  language learners eye.However, it’s less well-known that French can get you pretty far in many African countries, especially in North, West and Central Africa, where many countries were French colonies in the past. African French is spoken by 120 million people, and it can be quite different from the French youd be exposed to in Europe and Canada.Even if youre familiar with Parisian or Quebec French, African French has unique features that take some getting used to.  Accent and vocabulary are heavily influenced by surrounding native African languages, and the resulting dialect s are rather distinct.Each African region is home to a variety of French accents and Creoles, and some are difficult to understand from region to region. Central African French differs a lot from West African French, and so on. African countries that make up la Francophonie  each have strong traditions of African-French prose, poetry  and film  that are  as diverse  as the cultures  from which they come.Of course, theres no dearth of basic French resources online or otherwise. You can use FluentU to go from the beginning stages right through native-level fluency, and there are even authentic videos on the site that feature different breeds of the French language.To focus on attuning your ears to new African accents and dialects, try listening to radio from Côte D’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon  and other nearby countries!Now that you know a little more about some major African languages, theres no excuse to pass them up. Youve seen how much territory they cover, and how many wonderful people you could meet by speaking them.Many of the countries listed here have rapidly growing economies, and are increasingly present in  the world stage in terms of trade  and politics.Furthermore, learning any of these languages is an opportunity to connect with a new culture and  deeply  experience any of the gorgeous countries in which these languages are spoken.With the Internet and a little ingenuity, learning these wonderful languages is not only within reach, but guaranteed to be a rewarding and enriching experience.