Written by Isabel Harmse With reference to World Portuguese Language Day, which was celebrated globally on Friday, 5 May, our focus falls on usage of Portuguese in Africa. Portuguese is…

Written by Isabel Harmse The continuous rise in international commerce constantly requires business owners to use different languages in order to scale up their companies. With more than 6,000 languages…

Written by Isabel Harmse In 2010 the United Nation’s Department of Public Information established French Language Day (Journée de la langue française) "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well…

Written by Isabel Harmse Yoruba is a Niger-Congo language spoken in West Africa. The number of speakers of Yoruba was estimated at around 20 million in the 1990s. The native…

Written by Annette van der Merwe Twi is a Niger-Congo language and a member of the Kwa family, spoken by up to 8 million people in Ghana, the Ivory Coast…

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…