Editing Languages of Africa (section)

===Afroasiatic languages===
{{Main|Afroasiatic languages}}
[[Afroasiatic languages]] are spoken throughout [[North Africa]], the [[Horn of Africa]], [[Western Asia]] and parts of the [[Sahel]]. There are approximately 375 Afroasiatic languages spoken by over 400 million people. The main subfamilies of Afroasiatic are [[Berber languages|Berber]], [[Chadic languages|Chadic]], [[Cushitic languages|Cushitic]], [[Omotic languages|Omotic]], [[Egyptian language|Egyptian]] and [[Semitic languages|Semitic]]. The [[Afroasiatic Urheimat]] is uncertain. The family's most extensive branch, the Semitic languages (including [[Arabic]], [[Amharic]] and [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] among others), is the only branch of Afroasiatic that is spoken outside Africa.<ref>{{cite book |first=Christopher |last=Ehret |chapter=Language and History |isbn=0-521-66629-5|page=290|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C7XhcYoFxaQC&pg=PA290|access-date=12 March 2018 |editor-last1=Heine |editor-first1=Bernd |editor-last2=Nurse |editor-first2=Derek |year=2000 |title=African Languages: An Introduction |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

Some of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include [[Arabic language|Arabic]] (a Semitic language, and a recent arrival from West Asia), [[Somali language|Somali]] (Cushitic), [[Berber languages|Berber]] (Berber), [[Hausa language|Hausa]] (Chadic), [[Amharic]] (Semitic) and [[Oromo language|Oromo]] (Cushitic). Of the world's surviving language families, Afroasiatic has the longest written history, as both the [[Akkadian language]] of Mesopotamia and [[Egyptian language|Ancient Egyptian]] are members.