The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, each generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan populations.

Overview

The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa has in some instances been controversial because certain groups believe populations are fixed to give other ethnicities numerical superiority (as in the case of Nigeria's Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo people). The following ethnic groups number 10 million people or more:

Central Africa

Horn of Africa

"The African" (French: L'Africain) is a short autobiographical essay written by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio.

Subject

In writing "L'Africain", Le Clézio reflects on his childhood in 1948 when he was 8 years old. According to the publisher he left Nice with his mother and brother to meet his father who was a doctor in Nigeria. His father remained there during the war but was too far away from the wife he loved and too far away from their two children (he had not seen either of these children growing up). In this short book Le Clézio remembers his father, who was a "jungle doctor" first in British Guiana and then in Cameroon and Nigeria. Here you can find Le Clézio's thoughts about his African childhood and about life in remote places. "L'Africain", the story of the author’s father, is at once a reconstruction, a vindication, and the recollection of a boy who lived in the shadow of a stranger he was obliged to love. He remembers through the landscape: Africa tells him who he was when he experienced the family’s reunion after the separation during the war years.The author may seem to be honouring the father from whom he was separated.