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The top 9 most spoken indigenous African languages.

Africa is said to be home to over a thousand languages, what they don't consider is that many of the languages are mutually intelligible & can be grouped under family groups. My right to compile this list stems from the fact that I am fluent in Zulu & speak Portuguese & French semi-fluently, I can barely maintain a conversation in Swahili (still learning) which means you could put me almost anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa (or Trans-Saharan Africa) & I'd be able to communicate with the locals to a certain degree. In this list, I'll exclude non-African languages & focus on indigenous languages. This is not from one source but from many sources so it's one of the more better researched lists you'll find on the internet. 


LANGUAGE - NUMBER OF SPEAKERS *

1) Arabic - 150 million
2) Swahili - 90 million**
3) Hausa - 50 million
4) Oromo - 37,4 million
5) Igbo -  30 million
6) Yoruba - 28 million
7) Amharic - 21,8 million
8) Zulu - 16 million
9) Shona - 7,2 million


* NB: These are approximate (i. e. rounded off) numbers & population/census numbers can fluctuate over the years. 

**First language speakers only.

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