Why Africa Continent is the Most Ethnically Diverse in The World
There are an estimated 287 languages spoken in Europe and about 2,300 languages in Asia, while over 3,000 languages are spoken in Africa.
Elewa Posed a Question on X (formerly Twitter):
Countless inquisitive people have pondered this question: Why is Africa so diverse? While some have linked Africa's diversity to the biblical Tower of Babel, others speculate that it may have anything to do with the "Out of Africa" hypothesis. This subject will be examined in this article, along with potential explanations for why Africa is the world's most ethnically diverse continent.
Several facts:
There are four main language families, or collections of languages with similar roots, in Africa: Niger-Congo-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, and Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) nations In contrast, the Indo-European and Uralic language families are the two largest in Europe.
The Indo-European family further subdivides into Germanic, Romance, Slavic, and Celtic language groups.
There are hundreds of languages throughout Asia, including some unconnected isolates and members of many families. On the continent, the most widely spoken language families are Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan, Kra-Dai, Koreanic, Austroasiatic, and Austronesian.
In comparison, there are an estimated 287 languages spoken in Europe and about 2,300 languages in Asia, while over 3,000 languages are spoken in Africa.
This as well is important to crucially show the depth of Africa and why our diversity is not too much compared with same territory for Europe. At least when we talk about further consolidation.
See:
The Limited Beauty in Diversity
https://imo.asirioro.com/p/the-limited-beauty-in-diversity
The Causes of Africa's Diverse Population:
Since there isn't a perfect map of African ethnic groups and their borders, we will use the one below, which is not totally correct.
Location and Biomes:
An eye-catching finding from the map is: Saharan North Africa and the Sahel Belt Have Less Ethnic Diversity Greater Diversity of Ethnic Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa (below the Sahara Desert).
What causes this?
Less life and people can survive in the Sahara Desert, which is nearly inhospitable.
Compared to the Savannah, mangrove, and tropical rainforest biomes, it is hence less diverse.
Water bodies or access to water:
According to archaeologists, the area that is now known as the Sahara Desert was a country of different kinds of grassland with numerous rivers and streams flowing through it in the very early days when human groups travelled gradually from the Northern African subcontinent into the West African region.
According to archaeologists, humanity gradually migrated from the Rift Valley region of Eastern Africa to Northern Africa and then from Northern Africa to Western Africa over hundreds of thousands of years.
There is evidence that humans lived in the region that is now Nigeria as early as 38,000 BC, or roughly 40,000 years ago.
Water bodies are typically the site of nascent human civilisations. For example, the River Niger/Benue Confluence was the site of the Proto-Yoruboid, Proto-Nupoid, Proto-Bassa, and Proto-Igbo (Niger-Congo Language Group) civilisations between 3000 and 2500 BC.
However, the Big Dry caused the River Niger to dry up. Between 300 BC and 200 AD, numerous proto-Yoruboid groups were driven from their ancestral confluence home in pursuit of water corridors.
The introduction of iron technology was another important development that occurred at the same time as the Big Dry. As of right now, the first direct evidence of iron production in the southwest confluence comes from Iffe-Ijumu in the early first millennium AD.
A "substantial quantity of iron slag and tuyères" discovered in Oluwaju rockshelter, around half a km from Ìtaàkpá, served as the evidence.
Diet and Soil Fertility:
A group may remain in a forest region for a time before moving on if there is an abundance of food there. Thus, following the desertification of the Sahara Desert, the human population moved into West Africa, decreasing diversity in Saharan North Africa and boosting diversity in West Africa and the human population.
Weather and Seasons:
Africa doesn't have as harsh of a climate as Euro-Asia, which has harsh seasons like winter that are unsuitable for human habitation.
Evolution to Sedentary Farming Communities: Following the domestication of plants and animals, agriculture, labour specialisation, and gender roles in the forests, humans began to become sedentary.
Iron tool discovery:
Early humans were able to construct cities and clear forests with the use of iron tools.
The majority of African ethnic groups did not develop into organised city states, kingdoms, or empires; instead, they lived in isolation. This is among the factors contributing to Africa's greater ethnic variety than that of Euroasia.
Why didn't we have our own Mongolian Empire/Khanate, Othoman Empire, or Roman Empire?
Only Few African Groups had Organized/Complex City States Formation and Empires. East and South Africa are worse - Most of the Africa groups were stateless, had no organized and complex societies and systems, no Empires & Kingdoms, less tools for war&conquest etc. As for Sahara North Africa - Roman Empire, Othoman and many Empires have had them in their territories.
Terrain/Geography:
For example: In 26 BC, the Romans attempted to invade Arabia but were utterly unsuccessful. I had a history teacher who called ancient Arabia "the wet dream of the Roman Empire" and with right reason.
Isolation frustrated the diffusion of ideas into the continent. The geographical terrain led to isolation of regions and also reduced contact with the outside world.
The advent of industrialization and modernity through the sea and air provides opportunity for the indigenous civilisations to erupt and grow but by then they’ve largely been conquered by aliens and the control over their respective territory already lost.
They may have been new lasting empires if the timelines were adjusted by a bit.
Age of Formation:
These city-states and empires were formed at a younger age than most, if not all, of their counterparts in Euro-Asia. For instance, the earliest recorded African empires were not as old as the Roman Empire. The earliest Sub-Saharan African Empire was in existence circa 800 A.D. Africa has more ethnic diversity than Euro-Asia because of the lateness of these empires (c. 800–1835 AD), their lower ethnic composition, and their less geographical dominance and landmass.
Ethnic composition: Comparing African City States/Empires to Euroasian Empires/City States (such as Songhai, Ghana, Òyó, etc.) and Mongolian Khanates, Islamic Caliphates, Roman Empires, Othoman Empires, etc., revealed that the former were less ethnically diverse.
Impact of the Landmass and Territories: Comparing African city states and empires to those in Europe, the former had less landmass and less territorial influence.
For example The Mongol Empire is the second-largest empire in the world by landmass, after the Roman Empire.
In contrast to Òyó (the Oyo Empire covered more than 150,000 square kilometres at its height), Kanem-Borno (the Kanem-Bornu Empire ruled over an area of about 777,000 square kilometres at its height), Ifè (the Ifè Empire covered about 300 kilometres (186 miles) at its height in the 14th century), Mali (the Mali Empire covered about 478,819 square miles (1,240,140 km2), Songhai (the Songhai Empire, a West African empire of the 15th and 16th century, covered more than 1,400,000 square kilometres at its height), Ghana (the Ghana Empire covered about 500,000 square kilometres at its height), Ashanti, Macina, Kongo, and Sokoto Empires.
A contributing factors behind this are;
Africa's Lack of Innovation and Technology: Compared to Euroasian countries of the same era, utilising Yorùbá as a case study:
Yorùbá had a less developed military industrial complex. In fact, guns were first used in warfare in the 19th century during the Ijebu and Ifè Military Alliance Against Owu Kingdom. These guns were even bought from Europeans on the coast, and even at this time, the majority of African groups in the Hinterlands lacked access to firearms.
The Benin Kingdom won the Benin-Igala conflict because it possessed guns earlier, albeit they had been bought from the Portuguese. It's also important to remember that a large number of the firearms that were sold to these Africans were somewhat antiquated. As of the 19th century, the majority of African conflicts still involved spears, swords, shields, horses, and other weapons. Even the evidence of war chariots is relatively weak.
Therefore, it can be said with certainty that Africa's technological backwardness in the twenty-first century began centuries ago, before the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism (which is frequently held responsible for the underdevelopment of Africa.
Civilisation - Effect of Superior Weaponry on Conquest, Colonisation and Preservation:
https://imo.asirioro.com/p/civilisation-conquest-colonization-and-weaponry
In my opinion, this is the primary reason why Africa failed to generate their "Roman/Mongol Empire" in terms of both landmass and diversity.
Tse-Tse Fly and Thick Rainforest:
Well, this is one of the causes, but I think it's not as important because African tribes employed horses in their conflicts, and as a result, these animals hardly lived because of tripanosomiasis.
Check:
Beyond the Berlin Border - Restoring Africa's Nations and Civilisations:
https://imo.asirioro.com/p/africa-beyond-the-berlin-border
Also see:
How Africa's Geography it in Endless Poverty:
https://youtu.be/Y8m95sCDEf0?si=EBWko2FGTfc5OfNa
Source(s):
A History of the Yorùbá People by Professor S.Akintoye
Wikipedia
