what is the most common lingua franca within the niger-congo language family
Tswana language


The Tswana language () is a Bantu language spoken in Southern Africa by about five million speakers. It is a Bantu language belonging to the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zone S (S.30), and is closely related to the Northern and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi language and the Lozi language. Tswana is an official language and lingua franca of Botswana. The majority of Tswana-speakers are found in the north of South Africa, where four million people speak the
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Temne language


Themne (also "Themne, Timne"; ) is a language of the Mel branch of the Niger–Congo language family, spoken in Sierra Leone by about 2.5 million first-language speakers. One of the country's most widely spoken languages, it is spoken by 36% of the country’s population. It also serves as a lingua franca for an additional 1,800,000 people living in areas near the Temne people. It is closely related to the neighboring Kissi language. It is related to the Baga languages spoken in Guinea
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Cipu language


Cipu ("Cicipu"), or Western Acipa, is a Kainji language spoken by about 20,000 people in northwest Nigeria. The people call themselves "Acipu". Like most Benue–Congo languages, Cipu has a complex noun class system. It has a fairly complex phonology with lexical and grammatical tone, vowel harmony and nasalisation. Virtually all Cipu speakers speak the lingua franca Hausa. Many also speak other nearby languages. Cipu is part of the Kambari branch of the Niger–Congo languages. The most recent published classification
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Demographics of Benin


2011-2012 (DHS Program): There are several dozen ethnolinguistic groups in Benin, representing three of Africa's language families: Niger–Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afroasiatic. The latter is represented by Hausa living mostly as merchants in the north, while Nilo-Saharan is represented by the Dɛndi, descending from the Songhai Empire. The Dɛndi language predominates along the Niger River in the far north, and is used as a lingua franca in Muslim areas throughout the north, in Alibori, Borgou, and Donga
19419879
Languages of Ivory Coast


Ivory Coast () is a multilingual country with an estimated 78 languages currently spoken. The official language, French, was introduced during the colonial period. This language is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. The seventy or so indigenous languages fall into five main branches of the Niger–Congo family. In the southeastern quadrant are Kwa languages, some such as Baoulé and Anyin (2–3 million and 1 million speakers) part of a dialect continuum with Ashante in Ghana, others such as Attié (
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Mende language


Mende ("Mɛnde yia") is a major language of Sierra Leone, with some speakers in neighboring Liberia. It is spoken by the Mende people and by other ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in southern Sierra Leone. Mende is a tonal language belonging to the Mande branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Early systematic descriptions of Mende were by F. W. Migeod and Kenneth Crosby. In 1921, Kisimi Kamara invented a syllabary for Mende he called Kikakui (). The script achieved widespread use for a time
10769551
Kikuyu people


as L0f, L3x, L4g and L5 per Castrì "et al." (2009). According to Salas "et al." (2002), other Gĩkũyũs largely carry the L1a clade, which is one of the African mtDNA Haplogroups. Gĩkũyũs speak the Gĩkũyũ language as their native tongue, which is a member of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger–Congo language family. Additionally, many speak Swahili and English as lingua franca, the two official languages of Kenya. The Gĩkũyũ are closely related to some
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Laal language


true, Laal may be the only remaining window on the linguistic state of Central Africa before the expansion of the main African language families—Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Niger–Congo—into it. Their immediate neighbors speak Bua, Niellim, and Ndam. Laal contains a number of loanwords from Baguirmi, which for several centuries was the lingua franca of the region under the Baguirmi Empire, and perhaps a dozen Chadic roots, which are not similar to the Chadic languages that currently neighbor Laal. In addition
488241
Temne people


Muslim. The Temne people speak Temne, a language in the Mel branch of the Niger–Congo languages. It is related to the Baga language spoken to Guinea. The Temne language (along with the creole language Krio) serves as a major trading language in northern Sierra Leone. As well as being spoken by the Temne people, Temne is also spoken by other Sierra Leonean ethnic groups as a regional lingua franca in Northern Sierra Leone. In total, the language is spoken by around 40% of Sierra Leone's population
7686775
Bemba language


The Bemba language, "ChiBemba" (also "Cibemba, Ichibemba, Icibemba" and "Chiwemba"), is a Bantu language spoken primarily in north-eastern Zambia by the Bemba people and as a lingua franca by about 18 related ethnic groups, including the Bisa people of Mpika and Lake Bangweulu, and to a lesser extent in Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and Botswana. Including all its dialects, Bemba is the most spoken indigenous Bantu language and a lingua franca in Zambia where the
6625747
List of lingua francas


national language in DR Congo, Tanzania and Kenya, and symbolic official status (understood but not widely spoken) in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It is the first language of education in Tanzania and in much of eastern Congo. It is also the auxiliary language to be in the proposed East African Federation. Wolof is a widely spoken lingua franca of Senegal and The Gambia (especially the capital, Banjul). It is the native language of approximately 5 million Wolof people in Senegal, and is spoken as a second language
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English as a lingua franca


English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language as "a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages". ELF is also "defined functionally by its use in intercultural communication rather than formally by its reference to native-speaker norms" whereas English as a foreign language aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native speaker cultural aspects. While lingua francas have been used for centuries, what makes ELF a novel phenomenon is the extent to which it is used – both
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Volta–Niger languages


The Volta–Niger family of languages, also known as West Benue–Congo or East Kwa, is one of the branches of the Niger–Congo language family, with perhaps 50 million speakers. Among these are the most important languages of southern Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and southeast Ghana: Yoruba, Igbo, Bini, Fon, and Ewe. These languages have variously been placed within the Kwa or Benue–Congo families, but Williamson & Blench (2000) separate them from both. The boundaries between the various
17981408
List of lingua francas


This is a list of lingua francas. A lingua franca (English plural "lingua francas", although the pseudo-Latin form "linguae francae" is also seen) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a first language, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both speakers' first languages. Examples of lingua francas are numerous, and exist on every continent. The most obvious modern example is English, which is the current dominant lingua franca of international diplomacy, business
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Niger–Congo languages


not well established. Other primary branches may include Dogon, Mande, Ijo, Katla and Rashad. The connection of the Mande languages especially has never been demonstrated, and without them the validity of Niger–Congo family as a whole (as opposed to Atlantic–Congo or a similar subfamily) has not been established. One of the most distinctive characteristics common to Atlantic–Congo languages is the use of a noun-class system, which is essentially a gender system with multiple genders. The language family most likely originated in
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Kituba language


Kituba is a widely used lingua franca in Central Africa. It is a creole language based on Kikongo, a family of closely related Bantu languages. It is an official language in Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is not entirely accurate to call Kituba a creole language as it lacks the distinction between superstrate and substrate influence that is typical of creole development. Kituba is known by many names among its speakers. In the Republic of Congo it is called "Munukutuba" or "Kituba". The
21731222
List of lingua francas


marginalization, and the adoption of French and Arabic by the political regimes of the Berber world as working languages. However, Tuareg, a branch of the Berber languages, is still playing the role of a lingua franca to some extent in some vast parts of the Sahara Desert, especially in southern Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Libya. Another branch, Tamazight, has become an official language of Morocco. In Algeria, Tamazight has been a national language since 2002, and an official State Language in 2016. Fanagalo or
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Sub-Saharan Africa


the Arab world. South Semitic languages are also spoken in parts of the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea). The Chadic branch is distributed in Central and West Africa. Hausa, its most widely spoken language, serves as a lingua franca in West Africa (Niger, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, and Chad). The several families lumped under the term Khoi-San include languages indigenous to Southern Africa and Tanzania, though some, such as the Khoi languages, appear to have moved to their current
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Chadic languages


The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, Central African Republic and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa. Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Blench (2006), for
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Yoruba language


many other Afro-American religions in the Americas and the Caribbean. Yoruba is most closely related to the Itsekiri language (spoken in the Niger Delta) and to Igala (spoken in central Nigeria). Yoruba is classified among the Edekiri languages, which together with Itsekiri and the isolate Igala form the Yoruboid group of languages within the Volta–Niger branch of the Niger–Congo family. The linguistic unity of the Niger–Congo family dates to deep prehistory, estimates ranging around 15,000 years ago (the end of the Upper
3458082
Languages of Europe


languages that were considered linguae francae over some ranges for some periods according to some historians. Typically in the rise of a national language the new language becomes a lingua franca to peoples in the range of the future nation until the consolidation and unification phases. If the nation becomes internationally influential, its language may become a lingua franca among nations that speak their own national languages. Europe has had no lingua franca ranging over its entire territory spoken by all or most of its populations during any historical period. Some linguae francae of past
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Hausa language


Mwaghavul, Tera, Tangale, Karekare, Bole, Sayawa, Bwatiye, Ngas, Bade, Gwandara, Galambu, Pali, Higi, Ron, Duhwa, Margi, Kilba, Duwai and many others. Native speakers of Hausa, the Hausa people, are mostly found in Niger, in Northern Nigeria, and in Chad. Furthermore, the language is used as a "lingua franca" by non-native speakers in most of Northern Nigeria and Southern Niger, and as a trade language across a much larger swathe of West
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Lingua franca


A lingua franca (; ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language is a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages. Lingua francas have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but
17595247
Multilingualism and globalization


language, even as they often disagree on the explicit number of those categories. De Swaan’s analysis of the world language system, which is arguably the most common analysis, distinguishes between five different types of languages, one of which is "English as global lingua franca." English is “hypercentral” to globalization as a result of both its common international use and its “highly prized” nature. Because English serves as lingua franca in so many international contexts (tourism, business, academia, science, etc.)
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Niger–Congo languages


The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by "Ethnologue" is 1,540. It is the third-largest language family in the world by number of
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List of lingua francas


and northern Côte d'Ivoire. Manding languages have long been used in regional commerce, so much so that the word for trader, "jula", was applied to the language currently known by the same name. Other varieties of Manding are used in several other countries, such as Guinea, The Gambia, and Senegal. The Sango language is a lingua franca developed for intertribal trading in the Central African Republic. It is based on the Northern Ngbandi language spoken by the Sango people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo but with
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Niger–Congo languages


native speakers, comprising around 700 million people as of 2015. Within Niger–Congo, the Bantu languages alone account for 350 million people (2015), or half the total Niger–Congo speaking population. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba, Igbo, Fula and Shona. The most widely spoken by number of speakers is Swahili. While the ultimate genetic unity of the core of Niger–Congo (called Atlantic–Congo) is widely accepted, the internal cladistic structure is
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Dogon languages


The Dogon languages are a small, close-knit language family spoken by the Dogon people of Mali, which is generally believed to belong to the larger Niger–Congo family. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages – most, like Dogul, having two tones; some, like Donno So, having three. The basic word order is subject–object–verb. The evidence linking Dogon to the Niger–Congo family is weak, and their place within the family, assuming they
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List of lingua francas


the 19th century. Spanish was used as a lingua franca throughout the former Spanish Colonial Empire, including territory in present-day U.S., but particularly in present-day Mexico, Spanish Caribbean, Central, South America and the Philippines, and still remains the lingua franca within Hispanic America. At present it is the second most used language in international trade, and the third most used in politics, diplomacy and culture after English and French. Turkish is still in use and widely spoken in several areas formerly part of the Ottoman
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Niger–Congo languages


language family do not fix a date for the start of that expansion, other than that it must have been sufficiently prior to the Bantu expansion to allow for the diversification of the languages within this language family that includes Bantu. The classification of the relatively divergent family of the Ubangian languages, centred in the Central African Republic, as part of the Niger–Congo language family is disputed. Ubangian was grouped with Niger–Congo by Greenberg (1963), and later authorities concurred, but it was questioned by Dimmendaal (2008
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Lingua franca


term is well established in its naturalization to English, which is why major dictionaries do not italicize it as a "foreign" term. Its plurals in English are lingua francas and linguae francae, with the former being first-listed or only-listed in major dictionaries. The use of lingua francas has existed since antiquity. Latin and Koine Greek were the lingua francas of the Roman Empire and the Hellenistic culture. Akkadian (died out during Classical antiquity) and then Aramaic remained the common languages of a large part of Western
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List of lingua francas


to the founding of modern Israel), Classical Nahuatl was more of a sociolect spoken among the elites (poets, priests, traders, teachers, bureaucrats) than a language spoken in any common family household. After the Spanish conquest, Nahuatl remained the lingua franca of New Spain. Spanish friars matched the language to a Latin alphabet, and schools were established to teach Nahuatl to Spanish priests, diplomats, judges, and political leaders. In 1570, Nahuatl was made the official language of New Spain, and it became the
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Nyanga language


The Nyanga language (native name "Kinyanga") is a language spoken by the Nyanga people in Kivu province, north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Speaker estimates range from 27,000 (Biebuyck & Matheene 1970) to 150,000 (1994 census). Many of the Nyanga speak Congo Swahili, the dominant regional lingua franca, as a second language. Nyanga is a Bantu language. Most of the (scarce) linguistic research conducted on Nyanga has been based on the materials published by Biebuyck and Mateene. Nyanga literature is
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List of lingua francas


Tanganyika and into the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. Swahili rose in prominence throughout the colonial era, and has become the predominant African language of Tanzania and Kenya. Some ethnic groups now speak Swahili more often than their mother tongues, and many, especially in urban areas, choose to raise their children with Swahili as their first language, leading to the possibility that several smaller East African languages will fade away as Swahili transitions from being a regional lingua franca to a regional first language. It has official status as a
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List of lingua francas


although various Tupi–Guarani languages are still spoken by small native groups in Brazil. Various pidgin languages have been used in many locations and times as a common trade speech. They can be based on English, French, Chinese, or indeed any other language. A pidgin is defined by its use as a lingua franca, between populations speaking other mother tongues. When a pidgin becomes a population's first language, then it is called a creole language. Guinea-Bissau Creole is a Portuguese Creole used as a lingua franca
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List of lingua francas


states of the South Caucasus. Bengali language acts as a lingua franca for the people living in Bangladesh and in West Bengal. Until the early 20th century, Classical Chinese served as both the written lingua franca and the diplomatic language in Far East Asia including China, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and Vietnam. In the early 20th century, vernacular written Chinese replaced Classical Chinese within China as both the written and spoken lingua franca for speakers of different Chinese dialects, and because of the falling power
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List of lingua francas


of Swahili in eastern Africa. Between 1880 and 1900, the colonial administration, in need of a common language for the region, adopted a simplified form of Bobangi, the language of the Bangala people, which became Lingala. Spoken Lingala has many loanwords from French, inflected with Lingala affixes. The largely interintelligible Manding languages of West Africa serve as lingua francas in various places. For instance Bambara is the most widely spoken language in Mali, and Jula (almost the same as Bambara) is commonly used in western Burkina Faso
13685450
Urheimat


largest branch of Niger–Congo, is an empirically supported grouping which probably originated at the confluence of the Benue and Niger Rivers in Central Nigeria. These estimates of the place of origin of the Benue-Congo language family do not fix a date for the start of that expansion other than that it must have been sufficiently prior to the Bantu expansion to allow for the diversification of the languages within this language family that includes Bantu. There is a widespread consensus among linguistic scholars that Bantu languages of the Niger–Congo family have
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Kongo people


In the Democratic Republic of the Congo most also speak French and others speak either Lingala, a common lingua franca in Western Congo, or Kikongo ya Leta (generally known as Kituba particularly in DR Congo), a creole form of Kikongo spoken widely in the Republic of the Congo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Angola. The religious history of the Kongo is complex, particularly after the ruling class of the Kingdom of Kongo accepted Christianity at the start of the 16th century. According to historian John K. Thornton
1281522
Rashad languages


The Rashad languages form a small language family in the Nuba Hills of Sudan. Part of an erstwhile Kordofanian proposal, they are of uncertain position within the Niger–Congo family. It was at first thought that they shared the characteristic morphology of Niger–Congo, such as the noun-class system. However, only the Tagoi branch has noun classes, and Blench remarks that it appears to have been borrowed. Thus, he classifies Rashad as a divergent branch of Niger–Congo outside the Atlantic–Congo core. A
18043337
Ega language


Ega, also known as Egwa and Diés, is a language of uncertain affiliation within the Niger–Congo language family spoken in Ivory Coast. It does not appear to belong to any of the traditional branches of Niger–Congo. Though traditionally assumed to be one of the Kwa languages, Roger Blench conservatively classifies it as a separate branch of the Atlantic–Congo family, pending a demonstration that it is actually related to the Kwa or Volta–Niger languages. The Ega people are increasing in number, though some are shifting
6792400
Yoruboid languages


being a short form of "Ede" the word for Language in most languages within the grouping and - "Foid"). The Defoid group itself is a branch of the Benue–Congo subfamily of the Niger–Congo language family. Igala is a key Yoruboid language, spoken by 1.8 million people in the Niger-Benue confluence of central Nigeria; it is excised from the main body of Yoruboid languages to the west by Ebirra and the Edo languages. Igala is closely related to both Yoruba and Itsekiri languages. The
9192591
Lingua franca


but is used as a lingua franca in the Philippines. Arabic, French, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindustani, and Russian serve a similar purpose as industrial/educational lingua francas, across regional and national boundaries. International auxiliary languages created with the purpose of being lingua francas such as Esperanto and Lingua Franca Nova have not had a great degree of adoption globally so they cannot be described as global lingua francas. The term "lingua franca" derives from Mediterranean Lingua Franca, the pidgin language that people around the
17595252
List of lingua francas


German language for the German people that used, at this point, largely French as a lingua franca like almost all European regions, but German can be indeed still considered as a lingua franca though with far less importance than French until the 20th century or English today. German remained an important second language in much of Central and Eastern Europe after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 for a few years. Today, although to a much diminished degree after World War II, it is still a common second language
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Fula language


Fula , also known as Fulani or Fulah (Fula: "Fulfulde, Pulaar, Pular"; ), is a Senegambian language spoken as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 20 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Senegambian branch within the Niger–Congo languages, which does not have tones, unlike most other Niger–Congo languages. More broadly, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic grouping within Niger–Congo.
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List of lingua francas


, science, technology and aviation, but many other languages serve, or have served at different historical periods, as lingua francas in particular regions, countries, or in special contexts. During apartheid, the South African government aimed to establish Afrikaans as the primary lingua franca in South Africa and South African-controlled South-West Africa (now Namibia), although English was also in common use. Since the end of apartheid, English has been widely adopted as the sole lingua franca. Many institutions that had names in English
13685442
Lingua franca


. The earliest examples of writing in Swahili are from 1711. In the early 1800's the use of Swahili as a lingua franca moved inland with the Arabic ivory and slave traders. It was eventually adopted by Europeans as well during periods of colonization in the area. German colonizers used it as the language of administration in Tanganyika, which influenced the choice to use it as a national language in what is now independent Tanzania. In the European Union, the use of English as a lingua franca has led to the emergence of
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Ubangian languages


Eastern Adamawa". They were soon removed to a separate branch of Niger–Congo, for example within Blench's Savanna languages. However, this has become increasingly uncertain, and Dimmendaal (2008) states that, based on the lack of convincing evidence for a Niger–Congo classification ever being produced, Ubangian "probably constitutes an independent language family that cannot or can no longer be shown to be related to Niger–Congo (or any other family)." Blench (2012) notes that Dimmendaal presents no positive
18332825
Kanuri language


" + "-buma" "have eaten" → "za-wuna" "they have eaten". Traditionally a local lingua franca, its usage has declined in recent decades. Most first-language speakers speak Hausa or Arabic as a second language. Kanuri is spoken mainly in lowlands of the Chad Basin, with speakers in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan. " Ethnologue" divides Kanuri into the following languages, while many linguists (e.g. Cyffer 1998) regard them as dialects of a single language.
4081291
Lingua franca


also for cultural, religious, diplomatic, and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance-based pidgin language used (especially by traders and seamen) as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th century. A world language – a language spoken internationally and by a large number of people – is a language that may function as a global lingua franca. Lingua franca refers
17595248
Mediterranean Lingua Franca


The Mediterranean Lingua Franca or Sabir was a pidgin language used as a lingua franca in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th centuries. "Lingua franca" means literally "language of the Franks" in Late Latin, and originally referred specifically to the language that was used around the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as the main language of commerce. However, the terms "Franks" and "Frankish" were actually applied to all Western Europeans during the late Byzantine Period. Later, the meaning of "lingua franca" expanded to
19341518
Languages of the Solomon islands archipelago


There are between sixty and seventy languages spoken in the Solomon Islands archipelago as opposed to the nation state of Solomon Islands, which covers a smaller area. The lingua franca is Pijin, and the official language is English. Most of the languages in the Solomon Islands are Austronesian languages. The Central Solomon languages such as Lavukaleve constitute an independent family. Two other language families are represented on Bougainville, which is geographically part of the Solomon Islands, if not within the national boundaries. The status of the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages
16861711
Chadian Arabic


10 and 14 degrees north latitude). Nearly all of this territory is in the two countries of Chad and Sudan. It is also spoken elsewhere in the vicinity of Lake Chad in the countries of Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger. Finally, it is spoken in slivers of the Central African Republic and South Sudan. In addition, this language serves as a lingua franca in much of the region. In most of its range, it is one of several local languages and often not among the major ones. This language does
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Songhay languages


The Songhay or Songhai languages ( or ) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao. They have been widely used as a "lingua franca" in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east of Timbuktu) as the dialect
20473231
Fula language


distances never find communication impossible," and Ka (1991) concludes that despite its geographic span and dialect variation, Fulfulde is still fundamentally one language. However, "Ethnologue" has found that nine different translations are needed to make the Bible comprehensible for most Fula speakers, and it treats these varieties as separate languages. They are listed in the box at the beginning of this article. Fulfulde is an official language in Senegal "(Pulaar)", an official lingua franca in Guinea, Senegambia, Maasina (Inner Niger
10483412
Sotho language


Bantu language, belonging to the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho-Tswana branch of Zone S (S.30). Although Southern Sotho shares the name "Sotho" with Northern Sotho, the two groups have less in common with each other than they have with Setswana. "Sotho" is also the name given to the entire Sotho-Tswana group, in which case Sesotho proper is called "Southern Sotho". Within the Sotho-Tswana group, Southern Sotho is most closely related to Lozi ("Silozi"
15241456
Volta–Congo languages


Volta–Congo is a hypothetical major branch of languages of the Niger–Congo family. It includes all the Niger-Congo languages and subfamilies except the families of the erstwhile Atlantic and Kordofanian branches, Mande, Dogon, Ijo and Balanta. It thus only differs from Atlantic–Congo in that it excludes the Atlantic languages and, in some conceptions, Kru and Senufo. In the infobox at the right, the languages which appear to be the most divergent (including the dubious Senufo and Kru, which may not be Volta
5734606
Mediterranean Lingua Franca


America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of Lingua Franca with the local languages. When English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the crews tried to learn this "broken Portuguese". Through a process of relexification, the Lingua Franca and Portuguese lexicon was substituted by the languages of the peoples in contact. This theory is one way of explaining the similarities between most of the European-based pidgins and creole languages, such as Tok Pisin,
19341521
Lingua franca


Franca has come to be interpreted as a general term for pidgins, creoles, and some or all forms of vehicular languages. This transition in meaning has been attributed to the idea that pidgin languages only became widely known from the 16th century on due to European colonization of continents such as The Americas, Africa, and Asia. During this time, the need for a term to address these pidgin languages arose, hence the shift in the meaning of Lingua Franca from a single proper noun to a common noun encompassing a large class
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West Africa


Africa bordering Central Africa. The population of West Africa is estimated at /1e6 round 0 million people as of . In Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, the nomadic Tuareg speak the Tuareg language, a Berber language. Colonial languages also play a pivotal cultural and political role, being adopted as the official languages of most countries in the region, as well as "linguae franca" in communication between the region's various ethnic groups. For historical reasons, Western European languages such as French, English and Portuguese predominate in Southern
18730389
Atlantic–Congo languages


The Atlantic–Congo languages are a major division constituting the core of the Niger–Congo language family of Africa, characterised by the noun class systems typical of the family. They comprise all of Niger–Congo except Mande, Dogon, Ijoid and the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian). Mukarovsky's West-Nigritic corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox at the right, the languages which appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top. The erstwhile Atlantic branch has been
12670560
Wolof language


Wolof () is a language of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania, and the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. Unlike most other languages of the Niger-Congo family, Wolof is not a tonal language. Wolof originated as the language of the Lebu people. It is the most widely spoken language in Senegal, spoken natively by the Wolof people (40% of the population) but also by most
11079741
Itsekiri language


each other, however, unlike Yoruba dialect speakers, native Itsekiri speakers do not recognise or use the standard Yoruba language as their official lingua franca. This may be owing to the historical isolation of the main body of Itsekiri speakers (in the Niger Delta) from the continuum of Yoruba speakers and centuries of developing a separate and distinct Itsekiri socio-cultural and national identity. Nevertheless, from a linguistic standpoint, both Itsekiri and standard Yoruba (based on the Oyo dialect) can be considered to represent two official variants of what
8925247
Kituba language


of Congo. It is spoken as the primary lingua franca in the provinces of Bas-Congo, Kwango and Kwilu and to a lesser extent in Kinshasa, Mai-Ndombe and Kasai-Occidental. Kituba is the largest language of the Republic of Congo. It is spoken in the southern half of the country, in regions of Kouilou (especially in Pointe-Noire), Niari, Bouenza, Lékoumou, Pool and in the capital Brazzaville. Lingala is more popular in the north. The status of Kituba in Angola is
21731225
Dagestan


of Russia's 131 endangered languages as identified by UNESCO can be found in Dagestan. Most of these endangered languages have Dagestani speakers in the mountainous region on the Dagestan-Georgia border. Prior to Soviet rule, the literary lingua-franca status to some extent belonged to Classical Arabic. The northern Avar dialect of Khunzakh has also served as a lingua franca in mountainous Dagestan where Avar-related peoples lived. And throughout centuries the Kumyk language had been the lingua-franca for the bigger part of the Northern Caucasus, from Dagestan
53400
Languages of Africa


one of three large language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger–Congo. Another hundred belong to small families such as Ubangian (sometimes grouped within Niger-Congo) and the various families called Khoisan, or the Indo-European and Austronesian language families mainly spoken outside Africa; the presence of the latter two dates to 2,600 and 1,500 years ago, respectively. In addition, the languages of Africa include several unclassified languages and sign languages. The earliest Afroasiatic languages are associated with the Capsian culture, the Nilo-
14467197
Niger–Congo languages


been developed for the language family as a whole. An important unresolved issue in determining the time and place where the Niger–Congo languages originated and their range prior to recorded history is this language family's relationship to the Kordofanian languages, now spoken in the Nuba mountains of Sudan, which is not contiguous with the remainder of the Niger–Congo-language-speaking region and is at the northeasternmost extent of the current Niger–Congo linguistic region. The current prevailing linguistic view is that Kordofanian languages are part of the Niger
1765235
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo


in the colonial period, with the push of missionaries to standardize and teach a local "lingua franca". It was originally spoken in the upper Congo river area but rapidly spread to the middle Congo area and eventually became the major Bantu language in Kinshasa for many reasons. Lingala was made the official language of the army under Mobutu, but since the rebellions, the army has also used Swahili in the east. With the transition period and the consolidation of different armed groups into the Congolese Army, the linguistic policy has returned
10473236
Ubangian languages


The Ubangian languages form a fairly close-knit language family of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango. Ubangian languages are generally included in the Niger–Congo family, though this has not been demonstrated, and they may possibly constitute an independent family. Joseph Greenberg (1963) classified the then-little-known Ubangian languages as Niger–Congo and placed them within the Adamawa languages as "
18332824
Lingua franca


Still, Indonesian is the sole official language and is spoken throughout the country. Persian is also the lingua franca of Iran and its national language. Hausa can also be seen as a lingua franca because it is the language of communication between speakers of different languages in Northern Nigeria and other West African countries. The only documented sign language used as a lingua franca is Plains Indian Sign Language, used across much of North America. It was used as a second language across many indigenous peoples. Alongside or a derivation of Plains Indian
17595262
List of lingua francas


Poland and the incorporation of most of the Polish areas into the Russian Empire as Congress Poland, the Russian language almost completely supplanted Polish. Portuguese served as lingua franca in the Portuguese Empire, Africa, South America and Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries. When the Portuguese started exploring the seas of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania, they tried to communicate with the natives by mixing a Portuguese-influenced version of lingua franca with the local languages. When English or French ships came to compete with the Portuguese, the
13685490
List of lingua francas


a large vocabulary of French loan words. It has now been institutionalised as an official language of the Central African Republic. Swahili, known as Kiswahili to its speakers, is used throughout large parts of East Africa and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as a lingua franca, despite being the mother tongue of a relatively small ethnic group on the East African coast and nearby islands in the Indian Ocean. At least as early as the late 18th century, Swahili was used along trading and slave routes that extended west across Lake
13685452
Languages of Africa


than the rest of the family (see Niger–Congo B (Bantu) in the map above). The Niger–Kordofanian language family, joining Niger–Congo with the Kordofanian languages of south-central Sudan, was proposed in the 1950s by Joseph Greenberg. Today, linguists often use "Niger–Congo" to refer to this entire family, including Kordofanian as a subfamily. One reason for this is that it is not clear whether Kordofanian was the first branch to diverge from rest of Niger–Congo. Mande
14467203
Mizo language


to the Constitution of India. The Mizo language belongs to the Kuki-Chin branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The numerous clans of the Mizo had respective dialects, amongst which the Lusei dialect was the most common, and evolved with significant influenced from Hmar,Lai and Paite etc to became the Mizo language and the "lingua franca" of the Mizo peoples due to its extensive and exclusive use by the Christian missionaries. The Mizo alphabet is based on the Roman script and has 25 letters, namely: In
6838559
List of lingua francas


such as Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Mali...). It is spoken mainly by Fula people, but is also used as a lingua franca by several populations of various origin, throughout Western Africa. Hausa is widely spoken through Nigeria and Niger and recognised in neighbouring states such as Ghana, Benin, and Cameroon. The reason for this is that Hausa people used to be traders who led caravans with goods (cotton, leather, slaves, food crops etc.) through the whole West African region, from
13685447
Languages of Africa


Saharan languages are linked with the Khartoum Mesolithic/Neolithic, the Niger-Congo languages are correlated with the west and central African hoe-based farming traditions and the Khoisan languages are matched with the south and southeastern Wilton industries. More broadly, the Afroasiatic family is tentatively grouped within the Nostratic superfamily, and the Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo phyla form the Niger-Saharan macrophylum. Afroasiatic languages are spoken throughout North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia and parts of the Sahel. There are approximately 375 Afroasiatic
14467198
List of lingua francas


and Afrikaans have since dropped the Afrikaans names. Notable cases are South African Airways and the South African Broadcasting Corporation. In Namibia, Afrikaans holds a more universal role than in South Africa, across ethnic groups and races and is the spoken lingua franca in the capital Windhoek and throughout most of central and southern Namibia. There are pockets where German is commonly spoken. English is the sole official language. Amharic is widely spoken in Ethiopia. It is an official national language, and thereby serves as a lingua franca for the many
13685443
International auxiliary language


An international auxiliary language (sometimes abbreviated as IAL or auxlang) or interlanguage is a language meant for communication between people from different nations who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primarily a foreign language. Languages of dominant societies over the centuries have served as lingua francas that have sometimes approached the international level. Latin, Greek and the Mediterranean Lingua Franca were used in the past, and (Standard) Arabic, Standard Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish have been used as such
3868631
Languages of Singapore


"lingua franca" due to British rule of Singapore, and was made the main language upon Singaporean independence. Thus, English is the medium of instruction in schools, and is also the main language used in formal settings such as in government departments and the courts. As Singaporean President Halimah Yacob said during her 2018 speech, “Through the education system, we adopted a common working language in English.” Hokkien (Min Nan) briefly emerged as a "lingua franca" among the Chinese, but by the late 20th
4469841
Fanagalo


Fanagalo is a Vernacular or pidgin (simplified language) based primarily on Zulu, with English and a small Afrikaans input. It is used as a lingua franca, mainly in the gold, diamond, coal and copper mining industries in South Africa and to a lesser extent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Although it is used as a second language only, the number of speakers was estimated as "several hundred thousand" in 1975. Once the British left, English became the lingua
7530460
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo


to its previous form and Lingala is again the official language of the Army. Swahili is the most widespread "lingua franca" spoken in Eastern Equatorial Africa. Many variations of Swahili are spoken in the country but the major one is Kingwana, sometimes called "Copperbelt Swahili", especially in the Katanga area. The constitution does not specify which of the two major variations of Tshiluba is the national language. Luba-Kasai is spoken in the East Kasai Region (Luba people) and Luba-Lulua is used in the West
10473237
Niger–Congo languages


. Proto-Niger–Congo (or Proto-Atlantic–Congo) has not been reconstructed, and few of the demonstrably coherent branches of it have been either. The major success has been several reconstructions of Proto-Bantu, which has consequently had an outsize influence on conceptions of what Proto-Niger–Congo may have been like. The only stage higher than Proto-Bantu that has been reconstructed is a pilot project by Stewart, who since the 1970s has reconstructed the common ancestor of the Potou–Tano and Bantu
1765256
Niger–Congo languages


dispute. For example, Roger Blench (2012) argued that Adamawa, Ubangian, Kwa, Bantoid, and Bantu are not coherent groups. "Glottolog" 3.4 (2019) does not accept that the Kordofanian branches (Lafofa, Talodi and Heiban) or the difficult-to-classify Laal language have been demonstrated to be Atlantic–Congo languages. It otherwise accepts the family but not its inclusion within a broader Niger–Congo. Glottolog also considers Ijoid, Mande, and Dogon to be independent language phyla that have not
1765242
Chokwe language


Chokwe is a Bantu language spoken by the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia. It is recognised as a national language of Angola, where half a million people spoke it in 1991. Another half a million speakers lived in the Congo in 1990, and some 20,000 in Zambia in 2010. Angola's "Instituto de Línguas Nacionais" (National Languages Institute) has established spelling rules for Chokwe with a view to facilitate and promote its use. It is used as a lingua franca in eastern
21160768
Technical translation


communicate with people from multiple language backgrounds also grows. Rather than working with multiple languages, some have proposed the idea of using English as the primary language for global communication, making English the lingua franca—or a common world language. However, English as a lingua franca has various implications for the field of technical communication. Particularly for technical translators who are native speakers of English, there is the tendency to assume a unilateral stance on translation. In other words, the technical translator's objective is to translate to and from
16378375
Herero people


Herero peoples. It is a Bantu language, part of the Niger–Congo family. Within the Otjiherero umbrella, there are many dialects, including Oluthimba or Otjizemba—which is the most common dialect in Angola—Otjihimba, and Otjikuvale. These differ mainly in phonology, and are largely mutually intelligible, though Kuvale, Zemba, and Hakaona have been classified as separate languages. Standard Herero is used in the Namibian media and is taught in schools throughout the country. Herero people believe in Okuruo (holy fire), which
10393226
Lingua franca


a new dialect called Euro English. In Qatar, the medical community is primarily made up of workers from countries without English as a native language. In medical practices and hospitals, nurses typically communicate with other professionals in English as a lingua franca. This occurrence has led to interest in researching the consequences and affordances of the medical community communicating in a lingua franca. Indonesian – which originated from a Malay language variant spoken in Riau – is the official language and a lingua franca in Indonesia, although Javanese has more native speakers.
17595261
Niger–Congo languages


. Similar classifications to Niger–Congo have been made ever since Diedrich Westermann in 1922. Joseph Greenberg continued that tradition, making it the starting point for modern linguistic classification in Africa, with some of his most notable publications going to press starting in the 1960s. However, there has been active debate for many decades over the appropriate subclassifications of the languages in this language family, which is a key tool used in localising a language's place of origin. No definitive "Proto-Niger–Congo" lexicon or grammar has
1765234
Niger–Congo languages


its seven vowels. The large majority of present-day Niger–Congo languages are tonal. A typical Niger–Congo tone system involves two or three contrastive level tones. Four-level systems are less widespread, and five-level systems are rare. Only a few Niger–Congo languages are non-tonal; Swahili is perhaps the best known, but within the Atlantic branch some others are found. Proto-Niger–Congo is thought to have been a tone language with two contrastive levels. Synchronic and comparative-
1765272
Lingua franca


Lingua Franca (the specific language), "lingua" means a language, as in Portuguese and Italian, and "franca" is related to "phrankoi" in Greek and "faranji" in Arabic as well as the equivalent Italian. In all three cases, the literal sense is "Frankish", leading to the direct translation: "language of the Franks". During the late Byzantine Empire, "Franks" was a term that applied to all Western Europeans. Through changes of the term in literature, Lingua
17595254
International auxiliary language


between people not sharing the same mother tongue are called "lingua francas". "Lingua francas" have arisen around the globe throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages") but also for diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term originates with one such language, Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a pidgin language used as a trade language in the Mediterranean area from the 11th to the 19th century. Examples of lingua
3868635
Portuguese-based creole languages


. Portuguese creoles are the mother tongues of most people in Cape Verde. In Guinea-Bissau, the creole is used as lingua franca among people speaking different languages, and is becoming the mother tongue of a growing population. They consist of two languages: Another group of creoles is spoken in the Gulf of Guinea, in São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea. Many other Portuguese creoles probably existed in the former Portuguese feitorias in the Gulf of Guinea, but also in the Congo region. Portuguese pidgins still exist in Angola
6169401
Demographics of the Democratic Republic of the Congo


Sudanic/Ubangian : Nilotic peoples : Pygmy peoples : More than 600,000 pygmies (around 1% of the total population) are believed to live in the DR Congo's huge forests, where they survive by hunting wild animals and gathering fruits. The four major languages in the DRC are French (official), Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Swahili), Kikongo, and Tshiluba. There are over 200 ethnic languages. French is generally the medium of instruction in schools. English is
8107288
Nigeria


notably Yoruba and Igbo, have derived standardised languages from a number of different dialects and are widely spoken by those ethnic groups. Nigerian Pidgin English, often known simply as "Pidgin" or "Broken" (Broken English), is also a popular lingua franca, though with varying regional influences on dialect and slang. The pidgin English or Nigerian English is widely spoken within the Niger Delta Regions, predominantly in Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt, Agenebode, Ewu, and Benin City. Nigeria is a religiously diverse society,
1645830
Fur people


survivors. The Fur speak the Fur language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family. They also speak Arabic as a lingua franca. There is no written or symbolic script for the Fur language. They recently have been using Arabic or Latin characters to put the language in written form. Most Fur people speak Fur fluently as their mother tongue. Common greetings include: Heavy drums are often used while making speeches and other public addresses. Fur dance style is unique to the region. Some of the main Fur dances are
11545587
List of lingua francas


by an equal number. In the Middle East, from around 2600BCE to 1500BCE, forms of Akkadian were the universally recognized language. It was used throughout the Akkadian empire as well as internationally as a diplomatic language – for example between Egypt and Babylon – well after the fall of the Akkadian empire itself and even while Aramaic was more common in Babylon. Arabic, the native language of the Arabs, who originally came from the Arabian Peninsula, became the lingua franca of the Islamic (Arab) Empire (from CE 733 –
13685455
Cantonese


numbering over 9 million individuals. Cantonese is the fourth most-spoken variety of Chinese in Thai Chinese households after Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. However, within the Thai Chinese commercial sector, it serves as a common language alongside Teochew or Thai. Chinese-language schools in Thailand have also traditionally been conducted in Cantonese. Furthermore, Cantonese serves as the lingua franca with other Chinese communities in the region. In Indonesia, Cantonese is locally known as "Konghu" and is one of the variants spoken by the Chinese Indonesian community
4997164
Niger–Congo languages


–Congo language family and that these may be the first of the many languages still spoken in that region to have been spoken in the region. The evidence is insufficient to determine if this outlier group of Niger–Congo language speakers represent a prehistoric range of a Niger–Congo linguistic region that has since contracted as other languages have intruded, or if instead, this represents a group of Niger–Congo language speakers who migrated to the area at some point in prehistory where they were an isolated linguistic community from the beginning.
1765236
List of lingua francas


, and Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. Urdu is also an official language in India. However, whilst the words and much of the speaking may sound similar, many literary differences are present, and Urdu is written in Nastaliq script while Hindi is written in the Devanagari script. Hindi has emerged as a lingua franca for the locals of Arunachal Pradesh, a linguistically diverse state in Northeast India. It is estimated that 90 percent of the state's population knows Hindi. Hindi is also a lingua franca
13685464
Languages of Austria


The languages of Austria include German, the official language and "lingua franca"; Austro-Bavarian, the main dialect outside Vorarlberg; Alemannic, the main dialect in Vorarlberg; and several minority languages. German is the national official language and constitutes a "lingua franca" and "de facto" second language: most Austrians other than (mostly rural) seniors are able to speak it. It is the language used in media, in schools, and formal announcements. The variety of German used, Austrian German, is
7626238