Editing Languages of Africa (section)

===Cross-border languages===
The colonial borders established by European powers following the [[Berlin Conference (1884)|Berlin Conference]] in 1884–1885 divided a great many ethnic groups and African language speaking communities. This can cause divergence of a language on either side of a border (especially when the official languages are different), for example, in orthographic standards. Some notable cross-border languages include [[Berber languages|Berber]] (which stretches across much of North Africa and some parts of West Africa), [[Kikongo language|Kikongo]] (that stretches across northern Angola, western and coastal Democratic Republic of the Congo, and western and coastal Republic of the Congo), [[Somali language|Somali]] (stretches across most of the Horn of Africa), Swahili (spoken in the African Great Lakes region), [[Fula language|Fula]] (in the Sahel and West Africa) and [[Luo languages|Luo]] (in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan).

Some prominent Africans such as former [[Mali]]an president and former [[Chairperson of the African Union Commission|Chairman of the African Commission]], [[Alpha Oumar Konaré]], have referred to cross-border languages as a factor that can promote African unity.<ref>[http://www.acalan.org/ African languages for Africa's development] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060524135600/http://www.acalan.org/ |date=24 May 2006 }} ACALAN (French & English).</ref>