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Most accessible African Language? | ||
Tags: African languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5734 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes  Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee | Message 9 of 12 18 December 2012 at 3:58am | IP Logged |
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Yoruba!
It's one of the biggest languages in Nigeria - and Africa as a whole, for that matter. It's also the language of Santeria and other Afro-Caribbean religions, so it's sort of like the Latin of West Africa, and is therefore the most important language of the African diaspora. Beyond that, I'd recommend it for 3 main reasons, all of which seem to be important to you: 1) I've seen more vernacular publications in Yoruba than any other language, including Swahili. A lot of it is traditional religious material of great cultural interest. 2) There's a Colloquial series for it, and other great materials besides. 3) Just listen to it. No, do it. Did I mention that in Nigeria they use drums to imitate the tones and can actually "speak" the language in a comprehensible manner using just the instrument? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kiniun Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4352 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Studies: Yoruba, Norwegian*, English | Message 10 of 12 27 December 2012 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
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My vote also goes to Yorùbá, but unlike Swahili, it is tonal. The language has a
Colloquial series w/ audio and another book by Fakinlede which is also OK, that comes with audio, as well as a big dictionary by Fakinlede. You can get them all on Amazon. You can get by in major cities in Nigeria with Yorùbá, as well as minor ones in Yorubaland. There are also countries like Togo and Benin, even in Brazil, where they speak this language. What may the challenges be? Well, Yorùbá like many Niger-Congo languages, have a very specific usage of certain words. For example numbers (in this case, the number 2) has several different forms: méjì is descriptive, and ejì is used for other purposes. You also have several different forms of these numbers to express how many times something has been done and so on. Another example. The word "that": that has many different forms which are used differently: náà, kí, pé and tí. These are all used differently, confusing? Feelings are expressed differently. Instead of saying I am hungry, you will say: eni npa mi - hunger is killing me. And so on. Other than that, Yoruba is a very beautiful language that I can recommend for anyone to learn. The language has its challenges like any, but you can overcome it with a focused mind. Edited by Kiniun on 28 December 2012 at 1:51am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5906 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 11 of 12 28 December 2012 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
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I agree with previous posts... Kiswahili is the most useful language... it is the only indigineous African language that is a working language of the African Union, and consequently it is being used on many levels. It is pretty much the major lingua franca in East Africa, making inroads into Central Africa. There is more literature in Kiswahili than in any other Sub-Saharan African Language...
Of course, the most spoken in the whole African country would be some form of Arabic... As for isiZulu, outside of South Africa and Zimbabwe it is not spoken. Large parts of South Africa isiZulu is a lingua france, and Northern Ndebele is mutually intelligible with isiZulu (unlike Southern Ndebele in SA)... It is after to ChiShona in Zimbabwe the language with the most native speakers, and has a substantial amount of second language speakers... Afrikaans is the lingua franca in Namibia, and in South Africa in the Northern Cape, and in Pretoria area. Especially in Namibia, knowing Afrikaans is very very useful... but it has little usefulness outside there, and it has few native speakers as opposed to second language speakers. I don't know much about languages in West Africa... But in terms of difficulty, Kiswahili is a nice intro into Bantu languages in general, it is the easiest of the lot by far. As an extensive trade language it got simplified a lot, while the typical Bantu structure remains. It will be a lot easier to afterwards expand to other Bantu languages. I've also heard people say that it has a lot of overlap in vocabulary with Arabic, potentially helping there as well... Apart from that I know Yoruba has a lot of materials, but I have no personal experience with it... isiZulu has quite a bit available as well in terms of learning materials, and the clicks are not as hard as people think they are... Lingala and Kituba have quite a bit in terms of availability... Edited by ennime on 28 December 2012 at 1:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kiniun Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4352 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Studies: Yoruba, Norwegian*, English | Message 12 of 12 29 December 2012 at 2:43am | IP Logged |
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Yoruba is a very rich language, with a lot of literature and oral traditions. One of
the first novels to be written in an African language was written in Yoruba. The book is called "Ogboju ode ninu igbo irunmale". In the end it comes down to where you will be traveling, which language you like the most and of course, how "useful" it will be for you. Do you like tones or want to learn a tonal language? Then I can recommend Yoruba. Do you not like tones? Then perhaps Kiswahili would be a better choice. But let's not forget about the hidden gems of Africa. There are so many languages that don't recieve the attention they deserve. Learning a language can also be of help to languages in decline. Take for example the Edo language. The language that was/is spoken by the pople of The Great Kingdom of Benin. It is now down to around 1 million speakers, and is in decline. It would not be of that much trouble to go from Yoruba to Edo or vice versa, as they have many similarities. I believe there's a course in Edo going on someplace in the US. And of course, you could always contact the University of Benin if you wish to take a course in Nigeria. There is a pretty good amount of material on the internet to teach you the basics, but no books that are easy to come by. You also have other major languages such as a Igbo and Hausa, which I'm sure are also very interesting. Edited by Kiniun on 29 December 2012 at 2:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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