Pauline OdhiamboNo continent even comes close to Africa's heritage of 2,000-odd native languages and dialects, accounting for nearly a third of all tongues spoken on earth.
But as the world commemorates International Mother Language Day on February 21, the celebration is tempered by an uncomfortable question: how much of that diversity will survive?
Ethnologue, a database on living languages worldwide, states that about 44% of these are now endangered, with an estimated 428 in Africa at risk of falling silent.
Globally, roughly nine languages go out of circulation every year. That's one every 40 days.
"If these languages die, the knowledge they hold dies with them," Leonard Muaka, chair of the department of world languages and cultures at Howard University in the US, said at a conference timed to coincide with the commemoration.
Scores of such events are underway this week – from community gatherings in rural Kenya to academic conferences in Washington DC – with the spotlight on nations that serve as the world's greatest reservoirs of linguistic diversity.
Data by the online portal Statista ranks the African countries with the highest number of living languages, and the stories behind the numbers are as varied as the tongues themselves.
Leading the list is a country so prolific that it accounts for more than a quarter of the languages spoken on the continent.
Linguistic force
With more than 520 languages woven through a population of 223 million, Nigeria is the undisputed capital of African linguistic diversity. English serves as the official language, but the airwaves hum with Hausa in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, Igbo in the southeast and scores of others, including Fulfulde, Ibibio, Kanuri and Tiv.
To be Nigerian is often to be multilingual — navigating between a mother tongue, a neighbouring language and a colonial inheritance.
Cameroon follows with 227 languages packed inside a country often described as "Africa in miniature" for its geological and cultural breadth. French and English compete for dominance, and a short drive can take you across multiple linguistic boundaries.
Fulfulde, Ewondo and Duala are widely spoken across vast regions of Cameroon, but the country also shelters far less widespread languages. These include Gyele, spoken by only a few hundred hunter-gatherers in the coastal forests, and Bung, a language facing extinction with fewer than 30 known speakers left in a single village.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the second largest African nation by area, provides a massive physical canvas for its 214 languages. Its population communicates daily in Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo and Tshiluba, among countless others.
Fragile tongues
Chad's official languages are French and Arabic, but the reality is far more layered.
More than 100 indigenous tongues are spoken across the country. Chadian Arabic serves as a lingua franca for trade and daily exchange across ethnic lines, while Sara dominates the south. At the margins sit languages such as Kujarge, spoken by only a few thousand people near the Sudanese border, and Bedjond, which is increasingly threatened as younger generations shift to more dominant tongues.
Tanzania, with 128 languages, is held together by Swahili as its unifying national language, used in politics and primary education. English remains the medium of secondary schools and higher courts, while native languages like Sukuma and Chagga are spoken by millions.
The country is also home to critically endangered tongues such as Akie, spoken by a diminishing group of hunter-gatherers, and Dahalo, a language with fewer than 500 speakers that features rare click consonants.
Ethiopia's 92 languages are dominated by the Afroasiatic family, with Oromo and Amharic serving as the two most widely spoken official working languages of the federal government.
Somali and Tigrinya are major regional languages. At the other end of the scale sit tongues like Ongota, moribund in southwest Ethiopia with only a handful of elderly speakers, and Komo, spoken by a sprinkling of communities along the Sudanese border.
West African mosaic
French is the official language of Côte d'Ivoire, although Dioula functions as a trade language across ethnic lines. Baoulé is one of the most commonly spoken indigenous languages in the central regions.
The country's 88 languages also include critically endangered tongues such as Eotile along the coast, and Mbre, a language isolate spoken by a small community in the centre of the country with no known linguistic relatives.
Ghana's 83 languages trail English, which is the official medium. The Akan languages – Twi and Fante – are the most widely spoken indigenous tongues in the south, while Dagbani and Ewe dominate in the north and east respectively.
Languages such as Dompo, spoken by fewer than a thousand people in the Brong-Ahafo region, and Animere, with fewer than 700 remaining speakers near the Togolese border, face a precarious future.
Nile and beyond
Sudan's linguistic identity is shaped by Arabic, spoken in both standard and local dialectal forms, alongside English, which retains significance in education and government. The country's 75 languages also include major indigenous tongues like Beja in the east and Nubian languages along the Nile, as well as more isolated ones such as Midob, spoken by a small community in Darfur, and Tima, classified as endangered in the Nuba Mountains.
South Sudan, the youngest nation on the list, designated English as its official language after independence to move away from the Arabic influence of the north. But the country's 73 languages tell a different story.
Dinka and Nuer are the dominant tongues, spoken by millions, while scores of smaller community languages, including Shilluk and Bari, sit alongside more vulnerable ones such as Tennet, spoken by a few thousand people in the south, and Indri, a language with only a few hundred speakers near the Ugandan border.
In all these countries, the arithmetic of language loss is visible in the gaps between the dominant tongues and the handful of elderly speakers keeping an ancient vocabulary alive. International Mother Language Day puts a date on the calendar to celebrate their existence. What it can't do is stop the clock.
