Diversity of language in Africa

There is more diversity in Africa than on all the other continents combined. That’s because modem humans originated in Africa and have lived there the longest. They’ve had ime to evolve enormous genetic diversity—which extends to skin color. Researchers who study it sometimes use Africa’s linguistic diversity—it has more than 2,000 languages —as a guide. “There is no homogeneous African race,’’ says geneticist Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania. “It doesn’t exist.’’ The prehistoric humans who left Africa some 60,000 years ago—giving rise over time to the other peoples of the world—reflected only a fraction of Africa’s diversity. 

Language diversity of continental Africa. Each dot represent a distinct language

(National Geographic, April 2019)