A television game show in Lagos enforces a strict rule: speaking English results in elimination. For a U.S.-born millennial in the audience studying her parents’ native language, the high‑pressure environment serves as an ideal classroom.
Simultaneously, a 15‑year‑old in Canada connects with a teacher 13,000 km (8,000 mi) away in Zimbabwe, learning a language her parents feared she would never master.
“Mhoroi,” Nyashadzashe Machingura greets cheerfully, her Canadian accent coloring the Shona word.
These moments illustrate a rising interest and entrepreneurial spirit surrounding African languages that were marginalized during colonial rule. Once considered secondary to English, French and Portuguese, they are undergoing a renaissance that also spawns business opportunities.
Africa hosts over one billion people who speak roughly a third of the world’s languages—estimated at 1,500 to 3,000 across its 54 nations—according to UNESCO.
Analysts say the resurgence is fueled partly by second‑ and third‑generation Africans in the diaspora who find it easier to reconnect with their roots and converse with older relatives through social media, online courses and digital entertainment.
“There were times I felt excluded because everyone around me spoke Shona and I couldn’t follow,” Nyashadzashe recalled after a lesson on traditional greetings, proverbs and clan symbols. She noted that, despite enjoying the food and wearing customary attire, she still felt disconnected.
Today her conversations with her grandparents in Zimbabwe are lengthening.
“Being able to engage with them on that level fills me with pride in my heritage,” she said.
Her Zimbabwe‑based tutor, Shungu Chidovi, left her banking job in January to devote herself full‑time to ZimbOriginal, an online platform that teaches Shona via storytelling, book clubs and “buddy‑pairing” exchanges.
She now instructs about two dozen learners spread across Zimbabwe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland, charging $50 per month.
The venture, part of a nascent but expanding wave of online initiatives promoting African languages, arose almost by accident. Chidovi began a blog on Zimbabwean traditions in 2016; readers soon inquired whether she offered Shona instruction.
“I didn’t realize at the time that I was actually writing about the Shona language,” Chidovi remarked.
Like many Africans, she grew up believing advancement required embracing Western languages over her mother tongue. In Zimbabwe, English dominates education, business and governance, even though the state officially recognizes 16 predominantly Indigenous languages.
“When people discuss Africa, they often think of English, French and Portuguese,” observed Believe Mubonderi, a linguistics lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University. His work stresses the need to secure a role for African languages in the technologies that shape communication, learning and trade.
“In most instances African languages were sidelined; they were never modernized for use in commerce, science or technology,” he added. “When a language holds low status, it risks becoming endangered.”
Governments and international bodies are attempting to reverse this trend.
The African Union’s 2022 adoption of Kiswahili—widely spoken across East Africa—as an official working language has boosted its global standing, and the United Nations has proclaimed 2022‑2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
The AU and UNESCO are further supporting documentation and revitalization efforts, including the use of artificial intelligence to produce and translate children’s books and teacher guides.
Yet a significant digital gap persists. UNESCO reports that only ten languages dominate the global internet ecosystem, while fewer than 2 % of African languages enjoy a meaningful online presence, leaving many without sufficient data to train AI systems.
Nevertheless, momentum for change is building, driven largely by Africans living abroad.
“People of African descent are recognizing that we possess our own identity, which we must embrace and celebrate,” Mubonderi said. “On Facebook, TikTok and elsewhere you see countless initiatives; younger diaspora Africans are striving by every means to revive, revitalize and employ these languages.”
Chidovi says she hears that yearning from children and their parents.
“When you are away from home, the longing for it intensifies,” she noted.
That yearning for connection is also reshaping cultural expressions.
In Nigeria, a game show titled “Masoyinbo”—meaning “Do not speak English”—has elevated Yoruba, one of the nation’s most widely spoken languages, to prime‑time entertainment. Contestants, including diaspora Nigerians, are tested on Yoruba language and culture, with prizes reaching thousands of dollars.
Host Olalekan Fabilola, who launched the show in 2024, views its popularity as part of a broader shift.
“Had ‘Masoyinbo’ debuted a decade earlier, it would not be what it is today,” he said. “We are living in an age of cultural resurgence; people yearn to return to their roots, to understand who they are and where they come from, making the show timely.”
Tomi Adeshokan, a New Jersey resident refining her Yoruba under Fabilola’s tutoring, attended a recent taping of the show as part of the audience. She explained that she lost regular exposure to Yoruba after moving out of her father’s home before the COVID‑19 pandemic. During the pandemic she turned to Clubhouse simply to hear the language, later enrolled in classes, and has since returned to visit family.
“It is vital for us to immerse ourselves in our culture rather than wholly assimilate into American or Western ways,” Adeshokan asserted.