List of ethnic groups of Africa explained

The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each ethnicity generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan populations.

The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa is highly uncertain, both 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).[1] [2] [3]

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.[4] 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.[5]

Lists

By linguistic phylum

As a first overview, the following table lists major groups by ethno-linguistic affiliation, with rough population estimates (as of 2016):

PhylumRegionMajor groupsPop. (millions)
(2016)		Number of groups
Amhara, Hausa, Oromo, Somali, Tigrayan200 200-300[6]
Akan, Fula, Igbo, Kongo, Mandé, Mooré, Shona, Yoruba, Zulu900 1650
Dinka, Kanuri, Luo, Maasai, Nuer, Songhai60 80
1 40-70
20 1[7]
6 3[8]
Total Africa 1.2 billion (UN 2016) c. 2,000[9]

Major ethnic groups

The following is a table of major ethnic groups (10 million people or more):

Major ethnic groupsRegionCountriesLanguage familyPop. (millions)
(year)
West Africa Niger–Congo, Kwa
Horn of Africa Afro-Asiatic, Semitic (2007)
ArabsNorth AfricaAlgeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, MauritaniaAfro-Asiatic, Semitic100+ (2013)[10]
BerbersNorth AfricaAlgeria, Libya, Morocco, MauritaniaAfro-Asiatic, Berber36 (2016)[11] [12] [13]
Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu (2007)
West Africa Niger–Congo, Senegambian
West Africa Afro-Asiatic, Chadic (2019)[14]
Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu
West Africa Niger–Congo, Volta–Niger (2017)
Central Africa Nigeria,[15] Niger,[16] Chad,[17] Cameroon[18] Nilo-Saharan, Saharan
Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu
Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu
West Africa Niger–Congo, Mande -->
Central Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu
West Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu
North Africa Afro-Asiatic, Berber11[19]
Nile Valley, East Africa, Central Africa Nilo-Saharan, Nilotic (2007)
Horn of Africa Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic (2022)
East Africa Niger–Congo, Bantoid (2000)
Horn of Africa Afro-Asiatic, Cushitic (2009)
West Africa Nilo-Saharan (2019)
West Africa Niger–Congo, Volta–Niger
Southern Africa Niger–Congo, Bantu (2016)

Notes and References

  1. News: Nigeria gives census result, avoids risky details . Reuters . Felix . Onuah . 29 December 2006 . 23 November 2008 . 26 January 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090126015018/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29819278.htm . dead .
  2. Book: Lewis, Peter . Growing Apart: Oil, Politics, and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria . 132 . University of Michigan Press . 2007 . 978-0-472-06980-4 . 23 November 2008.
  3. Book: Suberu, Rotimi T. . Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria . US Institute of Peace Press . 2001 . 154 . 1-929223-28-5 . 18 December 2008.
  4. Tishkoff. SA. 2009. The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans. Science. 324. 5930. 1037–39. 2009Sci...324.1035T. 10.1126/science.1172257. 2947357 . 19407144. etal. 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..
  5. Schlebusch. Carina M.. Jakobsson. Mattias. Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 2018. 19. 10.9–10.10; Figure 3.3 Population structure analysis and inferred ancestry components for selected choices of assumed number of ancestries. 10.1146/annurev-genom-083117-021759. 29727585. 19155657. 28 May 2018. free.
  6. Book: Childs . G. Tucker . An Introduction to African Languages . 2003 . John Benjamins Publishing . 9027295883 . 23 . 31 May 2018.

    c. 1,650 Niger-Congo, c. 200-300 Afro-Asiatic, 80 Nilo-Saharan, 40-70 Khoisan.

  7. Book: Childs . G. Tucker . An Introduction to African Languages . 2003 . John Benjamins Publishing . 9027295883 . x . 30 May 2018.
  8. Book: Childs . G. Tucker . An Introduction to African Languages . 2003 . John Benjamins Publishing . 9027295883 . x, 206, 211 . 30 May 2018.
  9. 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.Book: African Languages: an Introduction. Heine. Bernd. Heine. Bernd. Cambridge University Press. 2000. Some counts estimate "over 3,000", e.g. Book: The Language of African Literature. ix. Epstein. Edmund L.. Kole. Robert. Africa World Press. 1998. 0-86543-534-0. over 3,000 indigenous languages by some counts, and many creoles, pidgins, and lingua francas.. 23 June 2011. . Niger-Congo alone accounts for the majority of languages (and the majority of population), estimated at 1,560 languages by SIL Ethnologue) (Web site: Ethnologue report for Nigeria . Ethnologue Languages of the World.)
  10. Book: Group, The Diagram . Encyclopedia of African Peoples . 26 November 2013 . Routledge . 978-1-135-96341-5 . en.
  11. Book: Steven L. Danver . Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues . 10 March 2015 . Routledge . 978-1-317-46400-6 . 23 . The Berber population numbers approximately 36 million people..
  12. Web site: Berber people . 17 August 2016.
  13. Web site: 5 May 2012 . North Africa's Berbers get boost from Arab Spring . 8 December 2013 . Fox News.
  14. Web site: Ososanya. Tunde. 15 June 2020. Hausa tribe is Africa's largest ethnic group with 78 million people. 17 February 2022. Legit.ng - Nigeria news.. en.
  15. Web site: The World Factbook: Nigeria. 31 December 2013. World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
  16. Web site: The World Factbook: Niger. 31 December 2013. World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
  17. Web site: The World Factbook: Chad . 31 December 2013 . . .
  18. 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[)]."
  19. Book: Strazny . Philipp . Encyclopedia of Linguistics . 2013 . Routledge . 1135455228 . 1124 . 30 May 2018.

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