Arabic is Africa’s most spoken language with more than 200 million speakers, followed by Nigerian Pidgin (121 million), Swahili (95 million) and Hausa (94 million), according to Ethnologue’s 2026 data.
| Rank | Language | Total Speakers (L1 + L2) | Native Speakers (L1) | Main Regions | Data Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arabic (all varieties) | About 213 million | Mostly dialect speakers | North Africa, Horn of Africa, Sahel | 2025 |
| 2 | Nigerian Pidgin | 121 million | 5 million | Nigeria and wider West Africa | 2026 |
| 3 | Swahili | 95 million | 4 million | East and Central Africa | 2026 |
| 4 | Hausa | 94 million | 58 million | Northern Nigeria, Niger, the Sahel | 2026 |
| 5 | Amharic | 78 million | 39 million | Ethiopia | 2026 |
| 6 | Yoruba | 53 million | 48 million | Southwest Nigeria, Benin, Togo | 2026 |
| 7 | Oromo | About 42–45 million | About 37–45 million | Ethiopia, Kenya | 2019–2024 |
| 8 | Lingala | About 41 million | 21 million | DR Congo, Republic of Congo | 2021 |
| 9 | Fula (Fulfulde, Pulaar) | About 40 million | 37 million | West Africa and the Sahel | 2014–2021 |
| 10 | Igbo | 34 million+ | 34 million | Southeast Nigeria | 2023 |
1. Arabic
About 213 million speakers in Africa. Nearly half of the world’s Arabic speakers live on the continent, and Arabic is official in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Mauritania, Chad, Djibouti, Somalia and the Comoros. Egyptian Arabic has 118 million speakers on its own (83 million first-language, 35 million second-language). Modern Standard Arabic is learned at school and is no one’s first language. The 213 million is a conservative total for all varieties.
2. Nigerian Pidgin
121 million speakers. Ethnologue counts only 5 million first-language speakers but 116 million second-language speakers, the largest second-language share on this list. It is an English-based creole, also called West African Pidgin English, and it connects speakers of Nigeria’s hundreds of languages.
3. Swahili
95 million speakers. Only about 4 million speak it first, and 91 million learn it as a second language. Swahili became an official working language of the African Union in 2022. About 40% of its vocabulary comes from Arabic, a result of centuries of trade along the East African coast.
4. Hausa
94 million speakers (58 million first-language, 36 million second-language). Hausa is the most widely spoken language of the Chadic branch of Afroasiatic and is spoken by about 53% of Niger’s population. It is also spoken in northern Cameroon, Benin and Togo, southern Chad and Sudan. It is written in both the Latin-based Boko script and the Arabic-based Ajami script.
5. Amharic
78 million speakers, split evenly between first-language and second-language users. Older estimates put the total at about 59 million, but Ethnologue’s 2026 count is higher. Amharic is Ethiopia’s most widely spoken language by total speakers, though Oromo has more native speakers.
6. Yoruba
53 million speakers (48 million first-language, 5 million second-language). Wikipedia’s older count is 50 million. Yoruba is spoken in Nigeria, Benin and Togo, and it is the most widely spoken African language outside the continent.
7. Oromo
About 42 to 45 million speakers. Estimates differ: one count gives more than 41.7 million speakers in Ethiopia (33.8% of the population), while another gives 45.5 million native speakers across all countries. It has the most native speakers in Ethiopia, ranks second there by total speakers after Amharic, and is also a first language for around half a million people in northern and eastern Kenya.
8. Lingala
About 41 million speakers, split between 21 million first-language and 20 million second-language users. It is a Bantu language of Central Africa that borrows from Kikongo, Swahili, French, Portuguese and English. It is a national language in DR Congo and the Republic of Congo.
9. Fula (Fulfulde, Pulaar)
About 40 million speakers: 37 million first-language and 2.7 million second-language. Fula is a single dialect continuum spread across the West African Sahel, and Ethnologue treats its main varieties as separate languages. Nigerian Fulfulde alone has 17 million native speakers. Counts of Fula speakers vary widely, and some sources claim far more.
10. Igbo
At least 34 million speakers. Igbo is spoken in southeast Nigeria, and it is a tonal language with limited mutual intelligibility between its northern, western, southern and eastern groupings. It was standardised in church use through the Union Igbo Bible of 1913. The count covers native speakers only, so Igbo may rank higher once second-language speakers are added. Zulu (12 million first-language, 16 million second-language) and Somali (about 21 million) come next.
Data Sources
- Ethnologue 2026 data, as compiled in Wikipedia, “List of languages by total number of speakers.” Pulled October 4, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
- Wikipedia language pages citing Ethnologue: Hausa, Swahili, Amharic, Yoruba, Oromo, Lingala, Fula, Igbo and Zulu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_language
- Altezza Travel, “Top 10 most spoken languages in Africa” (citing World Data for Arabic). https://altezzatravel.com/articles/10-most-spoken-languages-in-africa