Written By Isabel Harmse Venda, also known as Tshivenḓa, Bavenda or Luvenḓa, is an official language of South Africa. The majority of Tshivenda speakers live in the northern part of…

Written by  Annette van der Merwe Mandinka or Mandingo, is mainly spoken in Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau and to a lesser extent in Sierra Leone and…

Written by Annette van der Merwe Hassānīya Arabic is the official language of Mauritania and is also spoken by the Sahrawi people to the north of Mauritania. Hassānīya is a…

Written by  Annette van der Merwe The definition of a Creole language is a mother tongue formed from the contact of a European language such as English, French, Spanish, or…

Written by Isabel Harmse Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili - also known by its native name Kiswahili - has evolved into Africa’s most…

Written by Isabel Harmse According to the National African Language Resource Center, the Igbo language belongs to the Niger-Congo family and it has dozens of geographical dialects. Igbo is the…

Written by Isabel Harmse Hausa language, the most important indigenous lingua franca in West and Central Africa, is spoken as a first or second language by about 40–50 million people.…

Written by Isabel Harmse The history of the French language is long and fascinating. The events that shaped the language are relevant even today. Since French is such a major…

Written by Isabel Harmse Swati, Sewati, Swazi or siSwati are all names for the same language, which is part of the Nguni group. What can be termed standard Siswati has…

Written by Isabel Harmse Setswana is an African language spoken in South Africa, Botswana, and parts of Namibia. It is the national language of Botswana, and one of the eleven…