Language Families
Australia & OceaniaCulturalThe predominant language families of Australia and Oceania. Language families are groups of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language.
natureA map shows global language families. Afro-Asiatic (red) in North Africa, Altaic (blue) in Central Asia, Amerindian and Indo-European (purple) in the Americas, Aboriginal Australian (orange) in Australia, and Austro-Asiatic (yellow) in Southeast Asia.
Austronesian | Austronesian and Papuan | English | English and areas of persisting indigenous languages | Papuan | Class | Rank | Value | Abyssinia 700–1974 C.E. | Ashanti 1700–1900 C.E. | Axum 200–700 C.E. | Benin 1400 B.C.E.–1800 C.E. | Buganda 1600–1966 C.E. | Bunyoro 1500–1900 C.E. | Dahomey 1700–1900 C.E. | Darfur 1400–1800 C.E. | Ghana 700–1070 C.E. | Hausa States 1000–1900 C.E. | Ife/Oyo 1400–1850 C.E. | Kanem-Borno 800–1900 C.E. | Karanga/Mutapa 1000–1700 C.E. | Kongo 1400–1650 C.E. | Kush/Nubia 2000 B.C.E.–1590 C.E. | Lozi 1800–1900 C.E. | Lunda1500–1700 C.E. | Mali 1230–1430 C.E. | Merina 1800s | Nok 500 B.C.E.–200 C.E. | Songhai 1460–1590 C.E. | Swahili City-States 1100–1800s C.E. | Swazi 1800 C.E.–present | Zulu 1800s | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81.6% | 7.90% | 15.2% | 24.9% | 86.2% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 87.5% | 1.32% | 12.8% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 43.3% | 26.9% | 14.4% | 3.79% | 14.0% | 21.9% | 14.0% | 13.1% | 24.7% | 14.5% | 5.72% | 24.9% | 30.6% | 9.42% | 22.1% | 12.4% | 11.6% | 36.1% | 19.8% | 7.35% | 25.0% | 2.71% | 100% | 1.57% | |||||||||