African English

                        

Africa is the second most populous continent in the world with a growing population, after the decolonization of colonies from the English empire most of the seventeen countries colonized by England continue with English as official language along with their native languages. Moreover, there are around 130 million of Africans who speak English and there are 24 countries in total that have adopted English as official language and 27 in total where English is secondary or lingua franca or its used as a pidgin of English to boost their economy and general welfare in a globalized world such as Rwanda or Eritrea which were former colonies of Belgium and Italy.

It is said that Uganda is the first best English speaking country in Africa because is obligatory in all educational centres though it goes along with sixty indigenous languages, secondly it is South Africa which is  the first language of the white population in South Africa though it is used as a lingua franca for all and coexists among all the tribal African languages mainly from Zulu and the variety name Afrikaner English spoken by South Africans whose mother tongue is Afrikaans (a Dutch variety) spoken after their defeat in the Anglo Boer War (1899-1902). English is influenced by loanwords from Afrikaans and native languages in phonology they have retraction of the first element with the dipthong /ei/, raising of the front short vowels, schwas are found for /i/ in unstressed syllables and the dipthong /ai/ is used frequently. Unique words like abba (carry a child in the back with a blanket), amakhosi (chiefs), amasi (curdled milk), askies (excuse me), aweh (yes), babbelas (hangover), bakgat (fantastic), berg (mountain), biltong (dried salted meat), bliksem (beat up or hit), boet (brother), bonsella (gift, bribe), check you (See you), chommie (friend), deurmekaar (confused), dinges (things), doek (scarf).

Nigeria is the third largest English speaking country in Africa as it is the most populous with over two hundred million inhabitants and though it has many tribal languages this country flourishing economy, natural resources and film industry uses English as lingua franca.

Kenya is the fourth best English speaking country in African and its capital Nairobi is an important hub where English is ubiquitous though it coexists with Swahili and other 60 official languages.

Another African countries where English is used as co-official with native languages or used as a lingua franca for the judicial, educational, business areas or social media are Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Namibia, Botswana, Gambia, Lesotho, Swaziland... 

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