| Official languages | French, Portuguese and Spanish |
| Member states | 27 |
Romance-speaking Africa consists of the countries and territories in Africa whose official or main languages are Romance ones, and countries which have significant populations that speak Romance languages. French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian are the languages which meet these criteria.
Many of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF; International Organization of La Francophonie) or the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa), and seven are members of the Latin Union.[1]
North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, was part of the Roman Empire. As a result, the African Romance language evolved in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. It was spoken until the 17th century.
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The following is a list of the Sub-Saharan African countries where French or African French is spoken.[2][3]
African countries where Portuguese ( African Portuguese varieties) is spoken:[2]
Sub-Saharan African countries where Spanish or African Spanish is spoken:[2]
Spain territories in Africa (official language):
In North Africa there are countries where French or Spanish are spoken, but they are neither the main nor the official languages:
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, and Somalia conserve Italian as a colonial legacy; Somalia had Italian as its cultural language in universities up to 1991; however, the Italian language remains unknown to over 95% of the population. In Libya, Italians were forced to leave the country after its independence.
In all of these countries, the only one that most preserves Italian is Eritrea, that has only one Italian-language school remaining, with 470 pupils yearly. The name of the only Italian-language school in Eritrea is Scuola Italiana di Asmara[4]