The 1,500 languages which are spoken on the continent of Africa are divided into four language families: Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan.

The Afro-Asiatic family, located in the north of the continent, is divided into five groups: 

• Semitic
• Berber
• Egyptian
• Cushitic
• Chadic  

The Semitic group includes, among others, Arabic and Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. The Berber group includes Tamazight, Touareg, and Guanche, once spoken on the Canary Islands. Egyptian is the only known member of its group. The Cushitic group includes languages such as Somali – official in Somalia – and Oromo. Finally the Chadic group includes Hausa, which has the highest number of speakers of any language in Africa after Arabic.

The Niger-Congo family is the biggest language group in the world after the Austronesian family. It stretches from Senegal to Kenya and as far as the south of the continent. It is divided into the following groups: 

• Mande
• Kordofanian 
• Atlantic-Congo. This language grouping includes language sub-groups such as Atlantic (Fula, Wolof, Serer), Kwa (Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Igbo) and Benue-Congo, to which the Bantoid languages (Swahili, Fang, Zulu, Koongo, Mbundu, Kikuyu, etc.) belong. The relationship between them was one of the first to be recognised.  

The Nilo-Saharan family is to be found in a variety of locations between the Afro-Asiatic and Niger-Congo families. Its members include Maasai, Shilluk, Kanuri, Songhai and Nuer.

Finally the Khoisan family is scattered across the south of the continent and includes languages such as Nama and Kwadi. 

In addition to the languages grouped in these four linguistic families, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish are also spoken in Africa as a consequence of colonisation. When the colonies achieved their independence, many African states chose a European language as their official language: thus Portuguese is official in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau and a number of Atlantic islands, Spanish is in Equatorial Guinea, and English and French are each official in a number of states. 

If we look at language dynamics, Africa can be described as the continent with the greatest linguistic diversity as it has the lowest percentage of replacement processes (approximately 20% as opposed to the global 50%). Another characteristic feature is that while in other parts of the world languages that become extinct are replaced by European languages, in Africa it is other African languages (Swahili, Wolof, Hausa, Fula, Cishona) that move in to fill the gap.

Words derived from African languages have travelled around the world. This is the case of words such as voodoo, zombie, chimpanzee and safari that come from Bantu. Cola, donated by Ewe, has a presence in many languages due to Coca-Cola, and gnu, from Khoisan, is one of the few words to have come out of this family. 

As a reminder of a now disappeared language, ancient Egyptian has left us words such as endive and oasis. A large number of Arabic and Tamazight words have also been spread around the world, including cotton (Arabic).