Defining a lingua franca as a "common language which is habitually used as a medium of communication between groups of people whose mother tongues are different, "this book begins by comparing various Africa lingua francas and discussing questions of general relevance to their study, and then presents statements of varying length about…

Basically a defense of Joseph Greenberg's classification of African Languages (1963), this article also discusses in non-technical terms and in reference to the African situation how linguists deal with language change and how language relationships are determined. (FB)

The linguistic situation in Nigeria might be represented as a pyramid with a base composed of 400-500 native languages of which about 100 have been alphabetized. Of these, 51 with more than 100,000 speakers each, are considered regional languages; ten, with more than 1 million speakers each, are considered inter-regional languages; and three…