Niger has 11 national languages, with Hausa being the official and most spoken language. Depending on how they are counted,

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

has between 8 and 20 indigenous languages, belonging to the Afroasiatic,

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

and Niger–Congo families. The discrepancy comes from the fact that several are closely related, and can be grouped together or considered apart.

Official languages

The official language of Niger is Hausa. French, inherited from the colonial period is spoken mainly as a second language by people who have received an education (20% of Nigeriens are literate in French, and even 47% in cities, growing quickly as literacy improves). Although educated Nigeriens still constitute a relatively small percentage of the population, the French language is the language used by the official administration (courts, government, etc.), the media and the business community. Niger is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie. See also:

African French African French () is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or ''lingua franca'', it is spoken by an estimated 320 million people across 34 coun ...

Niger has ten official

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

s, namely

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Buduma, Fulfulde, Gourmanchéma, Hausa, Kanuri, Zarma & Songhai,

Tamasheq Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North and West Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others bei ...

, Tassawaq, Tebu.République du Niger, "Loi n° 2001-037 du 31 décembre 2001 fixant les modalités de promotion et de développement des langues nationales." L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde
(accessed 14 October 2014) These ten national languages, their language families, the approximate percentage of the population that speak them, their approximate home regions, and additional information are as follows:

Languages by number of speakers (according to Ethnologue)

By Region

Dominant languages

References

External links

''Ethnologue'' report on "Languages of Niger"

PanAfriL10n page on Niger

stub {{Niger-stub