The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each ethnicity generally having their own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan populations.
Afroasiatic
Hamitic (Berber, Cushitic) + Semitic (Ethiopian, Arabic)
Hausa (Chadic)
Niger–Congo
Bantu
"Guinean" (Volta-Niger, Kwa, Kru)
"Western Bantoid" (Atlantic)
"Central Bantoid" (Gur, Senufo)
"Eastern Bantoid" (Southern Bantoid)
Mande
Nilo-Saharan (unity debated)
Nilotic
Central Sudanic, Eastern Sudanic (besides Nilotic)
Kanuri
Songhai
other
Khoi-San (unity doubtful; Khoikhoi, San, Sandawe + Hadza)
Malayo-Polynesian (Malagasy)
Indo-European (Afrikaaner)
The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa is highly uncertain due to limited infrastructure to perform censuses, and due to rapid population growth. Some groups have alleged that there is deliberate misreporting in order to give selected ethnicities numerical superiority (as in the case of Nigeria's Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo peoples).
A 2009 genetic clustering study, which genotyped 1327 polymorphic markers in various African populations, identified six ancestral clusters. The clustering corresponded closely with ethnicity, culture, and language. A 2018 whole genome sequencing study of the world's populations observed similar clusters among the populations in Africa. At K=9, distinct ancestral components defined the Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting North Africa and Northeast Africa; the Nilo-Saharan-speaking populations in Northeast Africa and East Africa; the Ari populations in Northeast Africa; the Niger-Congo-speaking populations in West-Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa; the Pygmy populations in Central Africa; and the Khoisan populations in Southern Africa.
Lists
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2018) |
By linguistic phylum
As a first overview, the following table lists major groups by ethno-linguistic affiliation, with rough population estimates (as of 2016):[citation needed]
| Phylum | Region | Major groups | Pop. (millions) (2016)[citation needed] | Number of groups |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afro-Asiatic | North Africa, Horn of Africa, Sahel | Amhara, Hausa, Oromo, Somali, Tigrayan | 200 | 200-300 |
| Niger-Congo | West Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa | Akan, Fula, Igbo, Kongo, Mandé, Mooré, Shona, Yoruba, Zulu | 900 | 1650 |
| Nilo-Saharan | Nile Valley, Sahel, East Africa | Dinka, Kanuri, Luo, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai | 60 | 80 |
| Khoisan | Southern Africa, Tanzania | Nama, San, Sandawe | 1 | 40-70 |
| Austronesian | Madagascar | Malagasy | 20 | 1 |
| Indo-European | Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa | Afrikaners, British, French | 6 | 3 |
| Total | Africa | 1.2 billion (UN 2016) | c. 2,000 |
Major ethnic groups
The following is a table of major ethnic groups (10 million people or more):
| Major ethnic groups | Region | Countries | Language family | Pop. (millions) (year) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akan | West Africa | Ghana, Ivory Coast | Niger–Congo, Kwa | 20[year needed] |
| Amhara | Horn of Africa | Ethiopia | Afro-Asiatic, Semitic | 22 (2007) |
| Arabs | North Africa | Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania | Afro-Asiatic, Semitic | 100+ (2013) |
| Berbers | North Africa | Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania | Afro-Asiatic, Berber | 36 (2016) |
| Chewa | Central Africa | Malawi, Zambia | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 12 (2007) |
| Fulani | West Africa | Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic, Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone | Niger–Congo, Senegambian | 20[year needed] |
| Hausa | West Africa | Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Ghana, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan | Afro-Asiatic, Chadic | 78 (2019) |
| Hutu | Central Africa | Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 15[year needed] |
| Igbo | West Africa | Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon | Niger–Congo, Volta–Niger | 34 (2017) |
| Kanuri | West Africa | Nigeria,Niger,Chad,Cameroon | Nilo-Saharan, Saharan | 10[year needed] |
| Kongo | Central Africa | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Republic of the Congo | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 10[year needed] |
| Luba | Central Africa | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 15[year needed] |
| Mongo | Central Africa | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 15[year needed] |
| Mossi | West Africa | Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger, Ghana, Mali, Togo | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 11[year needed] |
| Nilotes | Nile Valley, East Africa, Central Africa | South Sudan, Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia | Nilo-Saharan, Nilotic | 22 (2007) |
| Oromo | Horn of Africa | Ethiopia, Kenya | Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic | 42 (2022) |
| Shona | East Africa | Zimbabwe and Mozambique | Niger–Congo, Bantoid | 15 (2000) |
| Somali | Horn of Africa | Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya | Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic | 20 (2009) |
| Songhai | West Africa | Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Algeria | Nilo-Saharan | 8 (2019) |
| Yoruba | West Africa | Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone | Niger–Congo, Volta–Niger | 40[year needed] |
| Zulu | Southern Africa | South Africa | Niger–Congo, Bantu | 12 (2016) |
See also
- African diaspora – Spread of people with African heritage
- Bantu peoples – Ethnolinguistic group in Africa
- Demographics of Africa
- Genetic history of Africa
- Indigenous peoples of Africa
- Languages of Africa
References
- Onuah, Felix (29 December 2006). "Nigeria gives census result, avoids risky details". Reuters. Archived from the original on 26 January 2009. Retrieved 23 November 2008.
- Lewis, Peter (2007). Growing Apart: Oil, Politics, and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria. University of Michigan Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-472-06980-4. Retrieved 23 November 2008.
- Suberu, Rotimi T. (2001). Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria. US Institute of Peace Press. p. 154. ISBN 1-929223-28-5. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
- Tishkoff, SA; et al. (2009). "The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans" (PDF). Science. 324 (5930): 1037–39. Bibcode:2009Sci...324.1035T. doi:10.1126/science.1172257. PMC 2947357. PMID 19407144.
We incorporated geographic data into a Bayesian clustering analysis, assuming no admixture (TESS software) (25) and distinguished six clusters within continental Africa (Fig. 5A). The most geographically widespread cluster (orange) extends from far Western Africa (the Mandinka) through central Africa to the Bantu speakers of South Africa (the Venda and Xhosa) and corresponds to the distribution of the Niger-Kordofanian language family, possibly reflecting the spread of Bantu-speaking populations from near the Nigerian/Cameroon highlands across eastern and southern Africa within the past 5000 to 3000 years (26,27). Another inferred cluster includes the Pygmy and SAK populations (green), with a noncontiguous geographic distribution in central and southeastern Africa, consistent with the STRUCTURE (Fig. 3) and phylogenetic analyses (Fig. 1). Another geographically contiguous cluster extends across northern Africa (blue) into Mali (the Dogon), Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. With the exception of the Dogon, these populations speak an Afroasiatic language. Chadic-speaking and Nilo-Saharan–speaking populations from Nigeria, Cameroon, and central Chad, as well as several Nilo-Saharan–speaking populations from southern Sudan, constitute another cluster (red). Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic speakers from the Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as some of the Bantu speakers from Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda (Hutu/Tutsi), constitute another cluster (purple), reflecting linguistic evidence for gene flow among these populations over the past ~5000 years (28,29). Finally, the Hadza are the sole constituents of a sixth cluster (yellow), consistent with their distinctive genetic structure identified by PCA and STRUCTURE.
- Schlebusch, Carina M.; Jakobsson, Mattias (2018). "Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa". Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 19: 10.9 – 10.10, Figure 3.3 Population structure analysis and inferred ancestry components for selected choices of assumed number of ancestries. doi:10.1146/annurev-genom-083117-021759. PMID 29727585. S2CID 19155657. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
- Childs, G. Tucker (2003). An Introduction to African Languages. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 9027295883. Retrieved 31 May 2018.: c. 1,650 Niger-Congo, c. 200-300 Afro-Asiatic, 80 Nilo-Saharan, 40-70 Khoisan.
- Childs, G. Tucker (2003). An Introduction to African Languages. John Benjamins Publishing. p. x. ISBN 9027295883. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- Childs, G. Tucker (2003). An Introduction to African Languages. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. x, 206, 211. ISBN 9027295883. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
- The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100. Heine, Bernd; Heine, Bernd, eds. (2000). African Languages: an Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Some counts estimate "over 3,000", e.g. Epstein, Edmund L.; Kole, Robert, eds. (1998). The Language of African Literature. Africa World Press. p. ix. ISBN 0-86543-534-0. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
over 3,000 indigenous languages by some counts, and many creoles, pidgins, and lingua francas.
. Niger-Congo alone accounts for the majority of languages (and the majority of population), estimated at 1,560 languages by SIL Ethnologue) ("Ethnologue report for Nigeria". Ethnologue Languages of the World.) - Encyclopedia of African Peoples. Routledge. 26 November 2013. ISBN 978-1-135-96341-5.
- Steven L. Danver (10 March 2015). Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-317-46400-6.
The Berber population numbers approximately 36 million people.
- "Berber people". Retrieved 17 August 2016.
- "North Africa's Berbers get boost from Arab Spring". Fox News. 5 May 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
- Ososanya, Tunde (15 June 2020). "Hausa tribe is Africa's largest ethnic group with 78 million people". Legit.ng - Nigeria news. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
- "The World Factbook: Nigeria". World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- "The World Factbook: Niger". World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- "The World Factbook: Chad". World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- Peter Austin, One Thousand Languages (2008), p. 75, https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0520255607:"Kanuri is a major Saharan language spoken in the Lake Chad Basin in the Borno area of northeastern Nigeria, as well as in Niger, Cameroon, and Chad (where the variety is known as Kanembul[)]."
External links
The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands with each ethnicity generally having their own language or dialect of a language and culture The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic Khoisan Niger Congo and Nilo Saharan populations 1996 map of the major ethnolinguistic groups of Africa by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division substantially based on G P Murdock Africa its peoples and their cultural history 1959 Colour coded are 15 major ethnolinguistic super groups as follows Afroasiatic Hamitic Berber Cushitic Semitic Ethiopian Arabic Hausa Chadic Niger Congo Bantu Guinean Volta Niger Kwa Kru Western Bantoid Atlantic Central Bantoid Gur Senufo Eastern Bantoid Southern Bantoid Mande Nilo Saharan unity debated Nilotic Central Sudanic Eastern Sudanic besides Nilotic Kanuri Songhai other Khoi San unity doubtful Khoikhoi San Sandawe Hadza Malayo Polynesian Malagasy Indo European Afrikaaner The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa is highly uncertain due to limited infrastructure to perform censuses and due to rapid population growth Some groups have alleged that there is deliberate misreporting in order to give selected ethnicities numerical superiority as in the case of Nigeria s Hausa Fulani Yoruba and Igbo peoples A 2009 genetic clustering study which genotyped 1327 polymorphic markers in various African populations identified six ancestral clusters The clustering corresponded closely with ethnicity culture and language A 2018 whole genome sequencing study of the world s populations observed similar clusters among the populations in Africa At K 9 distinct ancestral components defined the Afroasiatic speaking populations inhabiting North Africa and Northeast Africa the Nilo Saharan speaking populations in Northeast Africa and East Africa the Ari populations in Northeast Africa the Niger Congo speaking populations in West Central Africa West Africa East Africa and Southern Africa the Pygmy populations in Central Africa and the Khoisan populations in Southern Africa ListsThis article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources List of ethnic groups of Africa news newspapers books scholar JSTOR May 2018 Learn how and when to remove this message By linguistic phylum As a first overview the following table lists major groups by ethno linguistic affiliation with rough population estimates as of 2016 citation needed Phylum Region Major groups Pop millions 2016 citation needed Number of groupsAfro Asiatic North Africa Horn of Africa Sahel Amhara Hausa Oromo Somali Tigrayan 200 200 300Niger Congo West Africa Central Africa Southern Africa East Africa Akan Fula Igbo Kongo Mande Moore Shona Yoruba Zulu 900 1650Nilo Saharan Nile Valley Sahel East Africa Dinka Kanuri Luo Maasai Nuer Songhai 60 80Khoisan Southern Africa Tanzania Nama San Sandawe 1 40 70Austronesian Madagascar Malagasy 20 1Indo European Central Africa East Africa North Africa Southern Africa West Africa Afrikaners British French 6 3Total Africa 1 2 billion UN 2016 c 2 000Major ethnic groups The following is a table of major ethnic groups 10 million people or more Major ethnic groups Region Countries Language family Pop millions year Akan West Africa Ghana Ivory Coast Niger Congo Kwa 20 year needed Amhara Horn of Africa Ethiopia Afro Asiatic Semitic 22 2007 Arabs North Africa Algeria Libya Morocco Tunisia Mauritania Afro Asiatic Semitic 100 2013 Berbers North Africa Algeria Libya Morocco Mauritania Afro Asiatic Berber 36 2016 Chewa Central Africa Malawi Zambia Niger Congo Bantu 12 2007 Fulani West Africa Mauritania Gambia Guinea Bissau Guinea Nigeria Cameroon Senegal Mali Burkina Faso Benin Niger Chad Sudan Central African Republic Ghana Togo Sierra Leone Niger Congo Senegambian 20 year needed Hausa West Africa Nigeria Niger Benin Ghana Cameroon Chad Sudan Afro Asiatic Chadic 78 2019 Hutu Central Africa Rwanda Burundi Democratic Republic of the Congo Niger Congo Bantu 15 year needed Igbo West Africa Nigeria Equatorial Guinea Cameroon Gabon Niger Congo Volta Niger 34 2017 Kanuri West Africa Nigeria Niger Chad Cameroon Nilo Saharan Saharan 10 year needed Kongo Central Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo Angola Republic of the Congo Niger Congo Bantu 10 year needed Luba Central Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo Niger Congo Bantu 15 year needed Mongo Central Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo Niger Congo Bantu 15 year needed Mossi West Africa Burkina Faso Ivory Coast Niger Ghana Mali Togo Niger Congo Bantu 11 year needed Nilotes Nile Valley East Africa Central Africa South Sudan Sudan Chad Central African Republic Kenya Uganda Tanzania Ethiopia Nilo Saharan Nilotic 22 2007 Oromo Horn of Africa Ethiopia Kenya Afro Asiatic Cushitic 42 2022 Shona East Africa Zimbabwe and Mozambique Niger Congo Bantoid 15 2000 Somali Horn of Africa Somalia Djibouti Ethiopia Kenya Afro Asiatic Cushitic 20 2009 Songhai West Africa Niger Mali Burkina Faso Nigeria Algeria Nilo Saharan 8 2019 Yoruba West Africa Nigeria Benin Togo Ghana Ivory Coast Sierra Leone Niger Congo Volta Niger 40 year needed Zulu Southern Africa South Africa Niger Congo Bantu 12 2016 See alsoAfrican diaspora Spread of people with African heritage Bantu peoples Ethnolinguistic group in Africa Demographics of Africa Genetic history of Africa Indigenous peoples of Africa Languages of AfricaReferencesOnuah Felix 29 December 2006 Nigeria gives census result avoids risky details Reuters Archived from the original on 26 January 2009 Retrieved 23 November 2008 Lewis Peter 2007 Growing Apart Oil Politics and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria University of Michigan Press p 132 ISBN 978 0 472 06980 4 Retrieved 23 November 2008 Suberu Rotimi T 2001 Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria US Institute of Peace Press p 154 ISBN 1 929223 28 5 Retrieved 18 December 2008 Tishkoff SA et al 2009 The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans PDF Science 324 5930 1037 39 Bibcode 2009Sci 324 1035T doi 10 1126 science 1172257 PMC 2947357 PMID 19407144 We incorporated geographic data into a Bayesian clustering analysis assuming no admixture TESS software 25 and distinguished six clusters within continental Africa Fig 5A The most geographically widespread cluster orange extends from far Western Africa the Mandinka through central Africa to the Bantu speakers of South Africa the Venda and Xhosa and corresponds to the distribution of the Niger Kordofanian language family possibly reflecting the spread of Bantu speaking populations from near the Nigerian Cameroon highlands across eastern and southern Africa within the past 5000 to 3000 years 26 27 Another inferred cluster includes the Pygmy and SAK populations green with a noncontiguous geographic distribution in central and southeastern Africa consistent with the STRUCTURE Fig 3 and phylogenetic analyses Fig 1 Another geographically contiguous cluster extends across northern Africa blue into Mali the Dogon Ethiopia and northern Kenya With the exception of the Dogon these populations speak an Afroasiatic language Chadic speaking and Nilo Saharan speaking populations from Nigeria Cameroon and central Chad as well as several Nilo Saharan speaking populations from southern Sudan constitute another cluster red Nilo Saharan and Cushitic speakers from the Sudan Kenya and Tanzania as well as some of the Bantu speakers from Kenya Tanzania and Rwanda Hutu Tutsi constitute another cluster purple reflecting linguistic evidence for gene flow among these populations over the past 5000 years 28 29 Finally the Hadza are the sole constituents of a sixth cluster yellow consistent with their distinctive genetic structure identified by PCA and STRUCTURE Schlebusch Carina M Jakobsson Mattias 2018 Tales of Human Migration Admixture and Selection in Africa Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 19 10 9 10 10 Figure 3 3 Population structure analysis and inferred ancestry components for selected choices of assumed number of ancestries doi 10 1146 annurev genom 083117 021759 PMID 29727585 S2CID 19155657 Retrieved 28 May 2018 Childs G Tucker 2003 An Introduction to African Languages John Benjamins Publishing p 23 ISBN 9027295883 Retrieved 31 May 2018 c 1 650 Niger Congo c 200 300 Afro Asiatic 80 Nilo Saharan 40 70 Khoisan Childs G Tucker 2003 An Introduction to African Languages John Benjamins Publishing p x ISBN 9027295883 Retrieved 30 May 2018 Childs G Tucker 2003 An Introduction to African Languages John Benjamins Publishing pp x 206 211 ISBN 9027295883 Retrieved 30 May 2018 The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated depending on the delineation of language vs dialect at between 1 250 and 2 100 Heine Bernd Heine Bernd eds 2000 African Languages an Introduction Cambridge University Press Some counts estimate over 3 000 e g Epstein Edmund L Kole Robert eds 1998 The Language of African Literature Africa World Press p ix ISBN 0 86543 534 0 Retrieved 23 June 2011 over 3 000 indigenous languages by some counts and many creoles pidgins and lingua francas Niger Congo alone accounts for the majority of languages and the majority of population estimated at 1 560 languages by SIL Ethnologue Ethnologue report for Nigeria Ethnologue Languages of the World Encyclopedia of African Peoples Routledge 26 November 2013 ISBN 978 1 135 96341 5 Steven L Danver 10 March 2015 Native Peoples of the World An Encyclopedia of Groups Cultures and Contemporary Issues Routledge p 23 ISBN 978 1 317 46400 6 The Berber population numbers approximately 36 million people Berber people Retrieved 17 August 2016 North Africa s Berbers get boost from Arab Spring Fox News 5 May 2012 Retrieved 8 December 2013 Ososanya Tunde 15 June 2020 Hausa tribe is Africa s largest ethnic group with 78 million people Legit ng Nigeria news Retrieved 17 February 2022 The World Factbook Nigeria World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency Retrieved 31 December 2013 The World Factbook Niger World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency Retrieved 31 December 2013 The World Factbook Chad World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency Retrieved 31 December 2013 Peter Austin One Thousand Languages 2008 p 75 https books google com books isbn 0520255607 Kanuri is a major Saharan language spoken in the Lake Chad Basin in the Borno area of northeastern Nigeria as well as in Niger Cameroon and Chad where the variety is known as Kanembul External linksMedia related to Ethnic groups in Africa at Wikimedia Commons
