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- AbabdaCommunityAfro-AsiaticCamel herders of Egypt's Eastern Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, the northernmost of the Beja peoples, who guided caravans to the emerald mines and the Nubian gold roads, Arabic in a distinct dialect; the ancestral Beja language (Tu-Bedawie) lost in Egypt, retained by some in Sudan The Eastern Desert between Aswan, Edfu and the Red Sea, and the Halayeb triangle
- Ababua (Boa)CommunityNiger-CongoForest farmers of the Uele basin whose war masks — flat, white-and-black, with enormous projecting ears — are among the most immediately recognisable objects in Congolese art, and Boa (Ababua) Bas-Uélé province, DR Congo, in the forest between the Itimbiri and the Uele rivers around Buta and Bondo
- AbagogweCommunityNiger-CongoThe cattle-keeping communities of Rwanda's north-western volcanoes — highland Tutsi herders of the Gishwati and Virunga slopes who were among the first killed in 1994 and who have Kinyarwanda The Gishwati forest margins, Nyabihu and Rubavu districts, and the volcanic highlands towards the Congolese border
- Abagusii (Gusii/Kisii)CommunityNiger-CongoThe densely-settled highland farmers of southwestern Kenya — soapstone carvers of Tabaka, keepers of the egesa harvest dances and the ritual healer-diviners (abanyamoriogi), whose Ekegusii The Gusii highlands east of Lake Victoria — the cool, rainy 'Kisii highlands' around Kisii town, Tabaka and Nyamira
- AbakondeCommunityNiger-CongoThe lineages of Rwanda's north-west who held land by ubukonde, the right of the first family to clear the forest, a tenure that predated the monarchy, resisted it, and was abolishe Kinyarwanda, in the distinct northern varieties The former Ruhengeri and Gisenyi regions, on the volcanic soils below the Virunga range
- AcholiCommunityNilo-SaharanThe Luo chiefdoms of the Uganda–South Sudan borderland — poets of the royal drum and the larakaraka courtship dance, whose mato oput reconciliation rite taught the world a justice Acholi (Leb Acoli), a Luo language Acholiland — the savanna between the Victoria Nile and the Imatong foothills
- AfarCommunityAfro-AsiaticThe salt-caravan nomads of the Danakil — one of the hottest places on earth — whose camel trains, sultanates and clan law have mastered a landscape of volcanoes and salt lakes that Afar (Qafar af) The Afar Triangle: Danakil Depression, Awash valley, Lake Assal and the Red Sea coast between Massawa and Djibouti
- AgaléensCommunityFrench-lexified creoleThe people of two coconut islands a thousand kilometres north of Mauritius — a few hundred islanders whose community was built on copra, who have no airport of their own until rece Agalega Creole, a variety of Mauritian Kreol with its own vocabulary North and South Agalega, two low coral islands in the western Indian Ocean, 1,100 km north of Mauritius
- Agni (Anyi)CommunityNiger-CongoThe Akan kingdoms of eastern Côte d'Ivoire — Indénié, Sanwi and Moronou, founded by migrants from Asante, keepers of gold regalia and stools, and rulers of one kingdom that has twi Anyin (Agni), an Akan language Abengourou, Aboisso and Bongouanou — the forest zone along the Ghanaian border
- Aït AttaCommunityAfro-AsiaticAmazigh transhumants of the eastern High Atlas and the Saghro, governed by an annually rotating chieftaincy that no lineage could hold twice in succession, and the last Moroccans t Tamazight (Central Atlas Amazigh), with Arabic The Jbel Saghro, the eastern High Atlas, the Dades and Todgha valleys and the Draa, in south-eastern Morocco
- Ait LahsenCommunityAfro-AsiaticA Tekna-linked tribe of the Saguia el-Hamra — camel herders and caravan people of the northern Sahara whose sections ended up on opposite sides of the Western Sahara conflict, and Hassaniya Arabic, with Tashelhit spoken by families with northern connections The Saguia el-Hamra, the Laayoune region and the Tekna zone to the north
- AjaCommunityNiger-CongoThe parent people of the Fon and the Ewe — inhabitants of Tado, the town from which both dynasties trace their origin, keepers of the Vodun tradition at its source, and farmers of Aja (Aja-Gbe), part of the Gbe cluster with Fon and Ewe The Mono river valley — Aplahoué, Dogbo and Tado in Benin, Tado and Notsé region in Togo
- Aka (BaAka)CommunityNiger-CongoThe forest hunters of the Sangha basin — whose yodelled polyphony, sung by everyone at once in overlapping parts, is inscribed by UNESCO, and whose elephant-hunting and net-hunting Diaka (Aka), with widespread use of neighbours' languages The Sangha and Lobaye forests of the south-western Central African Republic and northern Congo
- Akan (Asante & Fante)CommunityNiger-CongoMatrilineal peoples of the Ghana–Côte d'Ivoire forest belt whose Asante Empire, Golden Stool, kente cloth and adinkra symbol system created one of Africa's most sophisticated court Akan (Twi dialects: Asante, Akuapem; Fante) and Baoulé/Anyi in Côte d'Ivoire Southern and central Ghana and southeastern Côte d'Ivoire — the historic gold-forest zone
- Akele (Kele)CommunityNiger-CongoDispersed forest communities of the middle Ogooué whose scattered settlement across half of Gabon reflects a nineteenth century spent moving ahead of the Fang expansion and behind Kele (Akele), with several distinct varieties Scattered across Moyen-Ogooué, Ogooué-Ivindo, Ngounié and Estuaire provinces of Gabon, chiefly along the Ogooué and its
- Aku of the GambiaCommunityEnglish-lexifier creole (Krio/Aku); Niger-CongoDescendants of liberated Africans resettled from Freetown at Bathurst in the 1820s, who built the colony's churches and mosques, supplied its lawyers and clerks for a century, and Aku, a Krio variety, alongside English; Yoruba retained liturgically in some families Banjul, particularly the old Half Die and Portuguese Town quarters, and the Kombo settlements
- Alaba (Halaba)CommunityAfro-AsiaticMuslim enset and pepper farmers of the Rift lakes escarpment, known across Ethiopia for the painted geometry of their houses and for supplying much of the country's berbere chilli. Alaaba (K'abeena-Alaaba), close to Kambaata Alaba special woreda in the Central Ethiopia Region, west of Lake Shala around Kulito, southern Ethiopia
- Ali (Ali-Gbaya)CommunityNiger-CongoA small Gbaya-group community of the Ombella-M'Poko and Lobaye, farmers and hunters on the savannah-forest margin north of Bangui, whose language is one of a cluster the wider Gbay Ali, a Gbaya-cluster language Ombella-M'Poko and northern Lobaye prefectures of the Central African Republic, north-west of Bangui around Bossembélé a
- AlurCommunityNilo-SaharanLuo-speaking rainmakers of the Albert Nile escarpment, whose chiefs were sought out by their non-Luo neighbours to rule over them — a pattern of voluntary incorporation that gave p Alur (Dho Alur), a Southern Luo language Nebbi, Zombo and Pakwach districts of north-western Uganda, and Ituri province in the north-eastern DR Congo
- Amazigh (Berber)CommunityAfro-AsiaticThe indigenous peoples of North Africa — 'Imazighen', the free people — whose Tifinagh script, mountain and desert civilizations, and millennia of continuous culture long predate t Tamazight family: Tashelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight, Tarifit, Kabyle (Taqbaylit), Tamahaq/Tamashek (Tuareg), Siwi Atlas and Rif mountains (Morocco), Kabylie and Aurès (Algeria), Nafusa (Libya), Djerba (Tunisia), Siwa (Egypt), and the
- Ambundu (Mbundu)CommunityNiger-CongoThe people of the Kwanza valley and Luanda's hinterland — the Ndongo kingdom whose ruler's title, ngola, gave Angola its name, whose Queen Njinga fought Portugal for four decades, Kimbundu, alongside Portuguese which now dominates in the cities Luanda, Malanje, Kwanza Norte and Bengo — the Kwanza valley and the highlands behind the capital
- Americo-LiberiansCommunityIndo-EuropeanFreed African Americans and Caribbean settlers who founded Liberia in 1822, built a republic on the American model, and ruled the indigenous majority as a five per cent minority fo Liberian English and standard English; Liberian Settler English is a distinct variety Monrovia, and the coastal settlements of Buchanan, Greenville, Harper and Robertsport
- AmharaCommunityAfro-AsiaticHighland civilization of the Ethiopian plateau — heirs of Aksum's Ge'ez literacy, builders of Lalibela's rock churches and Gondar's castles, whose Orthodox Christian culture and Am Amharic (Amarəñña) — Ethiopia's federal working language, written in the Ge'ez fidel script The central-northern highlands: Gondar, Gojjam, Wollo, Shewa — the Amhara region of Ethiopia
- Ana (Ifè) of TogoCommunityNiger-CongoThe Yoruba of the Atakpamé hills — a western outpost of the Ifè world, separated from the Nigerian heartland by two borders, who kept the orisha, the language and the claim of desc Ifè, a Yoruboid language distinct enough from standard Yoruba to be counted separately Atakpamé, Anié and the Plateaux region of central Togo
- Anaang (Annang)CommunityNiger-CongoPeople of the Cross River hinterland whose ekpo and ekpe societies governed before any state did, whose raffia weaving and wood carving are among the finest in Nigeria, and whose o Anaang (Annang), closely related to Ibibio Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, in the north-west of the state around Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Essien Udim
- Andalusians of TunisiaCommunityAfro-AsiaticDescendants of the Moriscos expelled from Spain in 1609, who arrived in their tens of thousands, founded a dozen towns on the Medjerda valley, brought the chechia hat and the malou Tunisian Arabic; Spanish retained for two or three generations after arrival and then lost Testour, Sloughia, Zaghouan, Grombalia, Soliman and the Medjerda valley towns, and quarters of Tunis
- AngolaresCommunityPortuguese-lexified creole (Gulf of Guinea group)The fishing people of São Tomé's southern shore — descendants, by their own account, of a sixteenth-century shipwreck or of escaped plantation workers, who kept a distinct creole, Angolar (N'gola), a Portuguese-lexified creole with heavier Kimbundu substrate than Forro São João dos Angolares and the southern coast of São Tomé, with communities along the beaches to Porto Alegre
- Anjouanais of MayotteCommunityNiger-CongoThe migrants from seventy kilometres away — Comorians from Anjouan who cross to Mayotte in small boats for work, schooling and hospitals, who build much of what stands there, and w Shindzuwani, closely related to Mayotte's Shimaore and largely mutually intelligible with it Mamoudzou's hillside settlements, Koungou, and informal quarters across Mayotte
- Annobonese (Ambô)CommunityPortuguese-lexified creole (Gulf of Guinea group)The people of an island six hundred kilometres from their own country — a Portuguese creole community on a volcanic speck in the Atlantic, with their own language, their own whale- Fa d'Ambô, a Portuguese-lexified creole related to Forro and Angolar; Spanish in administration Annobón (Ambô), a volcanic island in the Gulf of Guinea, south-west of São Tomé and far from mainland Equatorial Guinea
- AntaimoroCommunityAustronesianThe people of the sacred manuscripts — a south-eastern coastal group descended in part from Muslim settlers, keepers of the sorabe books written in Malagasy in Arabic script, and m Malagasy (Antaimoro dialect), with an Arabic-derived vocabulary in ritual and calendrical use The Matitanana river region around Vohipeno and Manakara on the south-east coast