Page 69 - Languages Victoria December 2019

Languages Victoria
Languages on the International Scene
Africa’s Linguistic Revolution Credit: FairPlanet
Date of publication: 29 October, 2019
This has been re-published with permission from the FairPlanet and the author Frank Odenthal.
Author: Frank Odenthal
Link to the online article: https://www.fairplanet.org/story/africa’s-linguistic-revolution/
About one third of the world's languages are spoken in Africa. Many see this as an obstacle to the development of the continent. German linguist Ekkehard Wolff has spent many years in Africa researching languages. . He explains why the continent’s multilingualism could be a powerful resource and therefore should be promoted rather than suppressed.
FairPlanet: The diversity of African languages is hardly recognised by many people. Most have heard of Swahili or Zulu before, but nothing more. Can you give us an insight into the linguistic diversity of Africa?
Getty Image: Barun Patro
Prof. Wolff: There are about 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, one third of them in Africa, the latest counts give about 2,150. However, figures depend on what is counted as a language: there is no unequivocal definition as to where a ‘dialect’ ends and a ‘language’ begins. With 54 states in Africa, this means that on average there are 40 languages per country. As a matter of fact, African countries are home to between just a few and up to over 500 languages, like in Nigeria.
Volume 23 Number 1
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