Talk:List of ethnic groups of Africa

Comments
I saw a reference to west philadelphia. presumably this is vandalism but i'm not sure how to fix or be sure. 2602:306:CD65:4530:DD35:9E01:238A:C976 (talk) 06:33, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

WHERE ARE THE EGYPTIANS, MOORS, BERBERS ETC?


 * It looks like Ethnic groups of the Middle East covers the north Africa, but I don't know how good that article is.80.186.205.118 (talk) 05:45, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

This list is rather incomplete, even when discussing the major ethnic groups. I saw no reference to Sango, Ga, Mossi, Temne, Sarahule, Ogoni, Malinke (although Bambara was there), Tuareg, or Manjak. Granted it is a lot of work, and since there are divisions of divisions they should be appropriately indicated. - Isaac —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.18.195.36 (talk) 22:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Unorganised data removed from article
I have removed the following from the article because it is a mess with all those templates and needs incorporating properly in the alphabetical list. It is between nowiki tags to stop it making a mess of the talk page as well. I would do this myself but have no way of knowing that the data is actually valid. Most of the templates don't exist - I think this may have been dumped in from another wiki. Anyone with some knowledge on this subject, please leave a note on my talk page and I will come back and sort it out.  Sp in ni ng  Spark  12:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Quality of article & possible approaches
This article needs a good deal of work starting from the opening sentence (it's a bit of an overstatement to say there are "thousands, each having their own distinct language and culture"). The attempt to list all ethnic groups is something that would need a lot more input and some reorganization to reflect groupings (e.g., Bambara and Mandinka in Manding; Zulu, Xhosa in Nguni; etc.). One could consider splitting this effort into two articles, with one on Ethnicity in Africa or Population groups in Africa, discussing the meaning of the term, and the overall picture of identities in Africa. The other article could be a list of groups.--A12n (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Egyptians as a race? and 65 millions Berbers?
Egyptians is a nationality not a race!.. there is alot of races in egypt.. and arabs is the Majority of egypt makes 70% of Population maybe more .. and for berbers i think they 20 millions only not more than that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.196.168.55 (talk) 23:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Egyptians are racially distinct, and have been for millenia. They are the largest single race within the Semitic family of races. Culturally, they are Arab, constituting the largest individual racial group that self-identifies as being culturally Arab. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.80.244 (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Krahn/Wee/Guere?
I know there is a fair bit of confusion as to the proper name to include in a chart such as this for the Krahn-Wee-Guere tribes, but they still hold an important place in Liberian and Côte d'Ivoire history so I think they definitely deserve a place in the chart. I am also in the process of updating the Krahn people page so there can be a link to that article.--AngelKelley (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleted material
I deleted some pov material about who was really what ethnic group. Some is cited to and imho is a complete misrepresentation that paper and for some reason doesn't mentions "The present research confirms anecdotal evidence in the Senegalese printed press of the decreasing size of the Serer ethnic group." The insistence here and elsewhere that the Serer are the ancestors of the Wolofs uses as a source, something written by Ebou Momar Taal who seems to have no qualifications that make him any sort of reliable source. The article "  Normal  0          false  false  false    EN-GB  X-NONE  X-NONE                                                                       What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?": Thoughts on Boundaries: And Related Matters: In Precolonial Africa" says "It turns out, to the best of my understanding,  that such matters did not used to be an issue among Niumi's residents, or seemingly among persons over a much wider area of Africa's western savannas, because the distant ancestors of today's Gambians did not identify themselves-at least primarily-as members of ethnic groups (or, God forbid, tribes). How they did identify themselves is difficult to determine because of the lack of evidence, all the more so because it appears that people's primary means of identity may have changed over time. Still, at some point in the past, several centuries ago, many people living in the Niumi banko may have held several levels of identity, none of which was as a "Mandinka." The top taxo- nomic level for some seems clearly to have been with an extended family. The state's mansakiindalu identified themselves as such, above all. Sonko Jilenkunda was one such family. Its members had enormous family pride; their praise singers extolled the past greatness of its male members and recited its (seemingly fabricated) tradition of origin. Persons who joined the family-either as marital partners or long-term clients-became "naturalized" in a sense: they learned the family history, gained an identity with important ancestors, and eventually took on a new Sonko identity." Dougweller (talk) 10:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Africans be merged into this page, Ethnic groups in Africa. The topic is already covered here in greater detail. This will also bring it in line with European people, which redirects to Ethnic groups in Europe. Middayexpress (talk) 00:04, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * My opinion on the Middayexpress proposed merger proposel is that the article Africans exist as a continental "collective demonym" and should continue existing due to the many phenotypes and ethnicities that exist on the African continent as well as the African continent being the second largest continent in the world as with the phenotype and ethnicity complexity of the largest continent in the world- Asia hence the existing continental "collective demonym" article Asian people. Merging an significant informative "collective demonym" article such as Africans which describes the complexity of the many phenotypes and ethnicities on the second largest continent in the world- Africa which contains more phenotypes and ethnicities than any other continent in the world to the continental native ethnicity based and largely unsouced article Ethnic groups in Africa which solely describes the locations of the native ethnic groups inhabiting the African continent as with the continental native linguistic based article Languages of Africa which solely describes the locations of the native languages spoken on the African continent is slightly absurd and especially when comparing articles as Middayexpress has done with the redirected wikilink European people to the continental native ethnicity based article Ethnic groups in Europe that has no comparison. Regards -- 149.254.51.83 (talk) 06:49, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Africa is indeed a diverse continent, much like Asia. However, the Asian people page is an unfitting analogy as it is largely on expatriate groups from Asia. There are also weird passages on "Asian eyes", "Asian noses", "Asian fat distribution" and "Asian teeth", which mainly deal with East Asians. The page appears to be more of an essay than anything. It may therefore also have to be merged into the corresponding Ethnic groups in Asia, per European people redirecting to Ethnic groups in Europe. Also, both Ethnic groups in Africa and Demographics of Africa already cover much of the material. Middayexpress (talk) 18:32, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, I've merged the page since the ip above has been blocked and per WP:SILENCE. Middayexpress (talk) 18:36, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Horn of Africa. Isn't this part of East Africa?
Isn't Horn of Africa in East Africa? If so where is East Africa like Kenya, etc. I think the Horn of Africa section should renamed to "East Africa" in-line with other sections in this article. A Bartenders Vegs (talk) 17:00, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The Horn is geographically in Northeast Africa. However, demographically, linguistially and culturally, it is a distinct area from the African Great Lakes region to its south. To complicate matters further, "East Africa" in the colonial period was often shorthand for British East Africa alone. This area corresponds with present-day Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in the Great Lakes region. Middayexpress (talk) 19:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This was one of those strange attempts by banned editor Middayexpress to disassociate the Horn of Africa from the rest of the continent, as s/he did with every article that even remotely touched on Somalia. It's ridiculous to classify Kenya as "South East Africa", and to have communities like the Luo listed under a category that's obviously East African. I think this might have been an attempt to ensure that Somalis were not classified together with Bantu groups, which has been a bit of a crusade for Middayexpress and related sockpuppets like Soupforone.
 * 114.134.3.154 (talk) 19:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Population figures need reliable sources
All population figures need reliable sources. Hopefully these are in the original articles, but notwithstanding they need to be in this one as well. My experience is that without sources editors happily come along and change them to their preferred figures. They do this even when sourced, but at least we can check them when they are changed. Dougweller (talk) 08:57, 25 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Recently editor Pratyoybiswas has been making changes to the population figures without providing citations to reliable sources. I would request that they provide the basis for such edits before making them again. --Bejnar (talk) 02:57, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I am specifically concerned about the change in the population figure for the Berbers in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, and Tunisia from 150 to 30+ million. I think the 30+ may be a more accurate figure, but I find the lack of a reliable source disturbing. The Berbers article lists the 30+ million figure, but the two citations are doubtful. See Talk:Berbers. --Bejnar (talk) 03:32, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Query of redirect
Should "African" redirect here? There are a great many things that are african without being ethnic groups: african mountain ranges, african food, african climate, african political organisations... Compare European and Asian, which are disambiguation pages. I almost linked an endangered african lizard here. The idea of the turquoise dwarf gecko belonging to a human ethnic group seems a bit silly, but it is undisputably african. HLHJ (talk) 10:10, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No way as this is just a single topic under Africa, create a Dab instead. Suggest this page should also be renamed to Native ethnic groups of Africa to match its content. Stanleytux (talk) 11:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 6 August 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 08:10, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Ethnic groups of Africa → Native ethnic groups of Africa – article specifically discusses the many ethnic groups that are native to the African continent, however "ethnic group" as a term has a much broader meaning. Stanleytux (talk) 21:31, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * All other continental ethnicity articles on wikipedia follow the same format: Category:Ethnic_groups_by_continent. We've compromised on Africa by using 'of' instead of 'in'. Yes, this isn't the 'African wikipedia' as you said, but it's the English wikipedia and I believe that it's meant to serve English speakers worldwide and the term 'native' as opposed to the more accepted 'indigenous' does have a prickly past in Africa, a very strong one at that. If you are referring to the absence of creole ethnic groups, that can be easily resolved by either adding another section in the article, or creating another page for to include Saros and Coloureds and so on, otherwise we'd have to move the other continental pages as well for the same reason. Ukabia - talk 19:50, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ukabia, going by the title of this article, it should also have content about the non-indigenous ethnic groups in Africa, the article certainly lacks creole ethnic groups, Saros and Coloureds as you have said, it also does not cover the African ethnic groups who can trace their ancestry back to other continents, for example European Africans, most common in Southern Africa. I believe adding another section in the article, for the non native/non-indigenous ethnic groups or creating a seperate page (if too large) and linking to this article will resolve all this. Thanks. Stanleytux (talk) 20:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose: there is no need to include the term 'native' it is redundant, and as noted above may be construed as offensive. Furthermore, the page currently lists Afrikaners as an ethnic group, the Afrikaners are interesting because they are not 'native' in the usual understanding of the word but are considered 'African', sometimes being described as the only 'white tribe of Africa'. For those concerned the remit of this article is currently too big there is a difference between being an ethnic group in Africa and an ethnic group of Africa. Ebonelm (talk) 21:03, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Ebonelm. Khestwol (talk) 21:13, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Arabs live in both Africa and Asia and are native to either continent but not always both. Should they be excluded or included? Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 06:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Very small groups
from Cameroon were added to the tables, while the idea was to present the largest groups as an overview.Marcin862 (talk) 16:58, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Links
Ip, the see also link points to various global social constructs, not to an anthropological group. The actual anthropological type you are alluding to is Negroid, which is just one of several morphologies extant on the continent (alongside Caucasoid and Capoid). It is also already linked in the see also. Moreover, both the global social construct and two of these taxons exist in Asia too (alongside Australoid and Mongoloid). So for consistency, whatever is linked to here should be duplicated on ethnic groups of Asia. Soupforone (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * There are several sub-groupings within those wide racial groupins, and others outside of them or which do not fall in with them. Black Africans is not simply a social construct, but a classification and designation used in many places for people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry and origin. Its not a specific term but the article and designation is obviously linked to indigenous Sub-Saharan Africans from whom they descend. It is not just a link to all black people, but to specifically the section on black Africans. I think it is useful to include here to show people that black African specifically refers to peoples from Sub-Saharan Africa, and that not all black people are African and from this group, with many non-Africans being black too like Negritos, Papuans, Australian Aborigines and Melanesians.ItaloCelt84 (talk) 17:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I understand. However, black is indeed a social construct (i.e. non-biological, societal concept) that varies globally. As with Asia, it is just one of several in use in Africa. There are also extant brown and white social constructs, including below the Sahara. Soupforone (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that "black" can be ambiguous and not highly specific to a correct ethnic origin. You are right that its meaning varies from say sub-Saharan Africa to a place like the Philippines (referring to indigenous Negritos there). The only white identities south of the Sahara are for those of non-African origin, like European Afrikaners (Dutch) and British in South Africa. Afro-Asiatic speakers south of the Sahara, like Chadic languages speakers, are not considered "white" like a North African Berber is, for example.


 * "Social construct" is a misnomer confined to certain ideological circles (usually Marxist ideologues) in some social sciences. It is not recognized by those in the biological sciences or in physical or forensic anthropology. Just because identities are "socially constructed", they are done so based on pre-existing biological and physical differences and identities. These are the same people who falsely argue that gender is somehow just a "social construct", as if one's biological sex is somehow completely independent of their gender, which again is not scientifically supported. The biology comes first in people, like any other organism, before the identity is articulated, and the identity articulated is based on the existing biological (physical and genetic) characteristics. ItaloCelt84 (talk) 12:11, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

ItaloCelt84, most Chadic speakers today are actually of Sudanic origin and thus likely once spoke Nilo-Saharan languages. It is known from genetic analysis that they absorbed the original Chadic speakers, who instead appear to have had Western European affinities (deduced from the high frequencies of paternal haplogroup R1 among modern Chadic populations). On the other hand, most other local Afro-Asiatic speakers, whether above or below the Sahara, are indeed ancestrally related. These biological ties are distinct from the black, brown and white social constructs, which have often changed and vary globally. The latter whimsical constructs are also not to be confused with the taxa of forensic anthropology, which I agree are instead mainly rooted in actual biology. Regards-- Soupforone (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

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Overview, separation into phyla, population best estimates
The overview section is crucial, otherwise this becomes completely intractable.

We do have estimates available, it is just important to state these aren't much more accurate than "order of magnitude" (give or take a factor 2 or so). It is still important to report that the Bantu have of the order of 250 million people, while the Khoisan have of the order of 1 million, such differences are significant even if the estimates are only good for one order of magnitude (upon review [below], the actual 2016 count is closer to 330M, for an error bar of the order of 20%).

Populations are under-reported because censuses in sub-Saharan Africa are as good as impossible, and the best available ethnographic estimates in some cases date to the 1990s or even 1980s. Population growth is anyone's guess, and it was systemically underestimated in the past, so that historical estimates for "2000" extrapolated from 1980s data will already be too low before they are further extrapolated to the 2010s.

Bearing this in mind, we have perfectly good references giving the order of magnitude of populations, and the separation into phyla. At present, we can say (as of 2016 or "late 2010s"): From this it is clear that Khoisan, Malagasy and European are negligible for total African population (well within the margin of error "1.2-1.3 billion") If Nilotic is rounded up to 100M (high estimate), we are left with 1,100 million (low estimate) for Afro-Asiatic plus Niger-Congo. UN projections limit Afro-Asiatic by: So within the UN projections, 400M is already an upper limit for Afro-Asiatic. The lowest number for Niger-Congo compatible with the UN projections is therefore 700 million:
 * total population 1.2G to 1.3G
 * Afro-Asiatic (North Africa, Sahara/Sahel, Horn of Africa): c. 400M
 * Niger-Congo: c. 500M (most severely under-estimated in view of the corrections of the UN population projections for 2016)
 * Nilotic: 70M
 * Khoisan: 1M
 * Malagasy: 25M
 * European: 6M
 * North Africa: 230M
 * Horn of Africa plus Sudan: 170M
 * Afro-Asiatic: 0.4G
 * Niger-Congo: 0.7G
 * Nilotic: 0.1G
 * others: 0.0G (below 40M)
 * total: 1.2G

A total of 700M is more than 30% too high compared with the totals I have aggregated in the Niger-Congo page. A closer review will be needed to establish which groups had their growth most severely underestimated. But across the board, the updated figures for Niger-Congo will be close to:
 * Atlantic: 45M
 * Volta-Niger: 160M
 * Benue-Congo: 360M (330M Bantu, 30M "other Bantoid")
 * other: 120M

The reason I am looking into this is that it has come to my attention that up to 300 milllion people are missing in our demographic estimates by ethnic or ethno-linguistic group. This is of the order of 4% of world population, or close to the entire population of the United States going unreported. In addition, the massive population growth in these populations means that the fraction of world population completely unaccounted for on Wikipedia is growing by the day. If I have ever seen a textbook case of Systemic bias, this has got to be it.

I realise we cannot make up date that hasn't been reported anywhere, and indeed we have to be clear that these figures are estimates with margins of error of the order of 20% to 30%, but this doesn't excuse us from compiling such inaccurate data as there is and presenting it, for better or worse.

The bottom line is that population estimates the Bantu phylum, as the largest group, are most crucial and should be looked into first. There is an uncertainty of scores of millions of people just within Bantu (about "250-350M").

--dab (𒁳) 11:00, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

I did a list based on per-country demographic data here, and the sum comes almost exactly to 350M as of 2015 (350M in 2015 would result in about 380M in 2018). This may still be off by 10% or more, but at least that seems to be the ballpark figure. Help is appreciated in improving this. --dab (𒁳) 09:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Nufu, nice of you to take an interest. We are agreed that the state of this article is below unacceptable, and that it is a very difficult topic. There can be gradual improvement, but it is pointles to roll back imperfect improvement attempts for not being perfect. Instead, you are welcome to actually help in putting work into it, and by engaging with the general roadmap / topical outline I have collected above. If you not show such engagement, I will assume you are unwilling or unable to put in the work and will try to do it to the best of my own ability. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 March 2020
The information stating "Cape Coloured" is an Indo-Afrikaaner ethnic group is grossly wrong. There is no such ethnic group or race called "coloured". The term "coloured" is a derogatory, classification created by the old apartheid Afrikaaner government. There are no such a people as "coloured". This is empirical knowledge. The people that are discriminatory labeled as "coloured" are aboriginal descendants from the Khoi and San. 41.193.88.15 (talk) 18:11, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See the article Cape Coloureds and the references cited on that page. It's a name and we reflect titles used by reliable sources. – Thjarkur (talk) 00:01, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Indo-European languages
If a discussion has to be started, the editor who wants to change should start it, in this case, that's you. Indo-European Afrikaans has been spoken in South Africa for more than 300 years, and it is listed in the book referenced at the end of the row in the table (pages 211 and 212 discuss it at length). --Rsk6400 (talk) 15:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

List of ethnic groups in east africa
Voice 197.239.6.241 (talk) 08:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Data update
The data in the population totals have discrepancies with their respective hyperlinks. i.e. of 2020 both Yoruba people and Hausa people have an estimation of 50 million worldwide but one needs only to sum to see that their population in Africa alone surpasses 40 million.

The major ethnic groups per population rank is as follows (bold is current page revision):


 * Maghrebis - 108.5 (2011)
 * Hausa - 78 (2019)
 * Yoruba - ~50 (2020)
 * Oromo - 41 (2018)
 * Somali - 38 (2017)
 * Igbo - 34 (2020)
 * Fulani - 30 (2019)
 * Hutu - 24.4 (no year found)
 * Amhara - 22 (2007)
 * Nilotes - 22 (2007)
 * Akan - 20 (2012)
 * Kongo - 18.9 (no year found)
 * Shona - 17.6 (2016)
 * Mongo - 15
 * Zulu - 14.2 (2016)
 * Mossi - 12.5 (2010)
 * Chewa - 12 (2017)
 * Kanuri - 10.3 (2021)
 * Ibibio - 10 (2020) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Queen of Wa, friend of Wei (talk • contribs) 08:18, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Below minimum of 10 million:


 * Luba - 7 (2010)

-- Queen of Wa, friend of Wei (talk) 06:35, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Map shows Volta-Niger as Bantu
The first map shows the green area as Bantu, but the Volta-Niger area (home of Yoruba, Edo, Igbo etc. languages) is also colored green, making the impression those languages belong to the Bantu family. Is it possible to add a different map? Casa de Lancastre (talk) 12:52, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Title
I think the title of this article is problematic, as I think people would expect a semi-exhaustive list including all ethnic groups that have a population over say 100,000. If the list itself is not expanded, then I think a more suitable name would just be Ethnic groups in Africa. I imagine it would be a fairly straightforward task to just look at countries' demographic pages and include populous ethnic groups, and possibly identify wider groupings. Please let me know what you think. Alexanderkowal (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2024 (UTC)