The Anthropological Linguistics of Africa

The Americas: 1,064 languages, which accounts for 15% of all languages, while the population represents 13% of the global population.
Asia: 2,301 languages, 33% of all languages, and 60% of the global population.
Africa: 2,138 languages, 30% of all languages, and 16% of the global population.
Europe: 286 languages, 4% of all languages, and 10% of the global population.
Oceania: 1,313 languages, 18% of all languages, and 1% of the global population.
Total Languages: 7,102 (100%) with a world population of $7,794,000,000$ .
Africa and Oceania are the most linguistically diverse places on Earth.

The worldmap.harvard.edu map shows a variety of language families in Africa, including:

According to ethnologue.com, there are 141 language families in the world.
25 of these are considered major language families (most numerous and widespread), and 6 of these are in Africa.
Five of these six existed in Africa prior to European contact.
These include: Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Khoi-san, and Austronesian.

There are 381 Afro-Asiatic languages in total.
Examples include: Ancient Egyptian (extinct), Arabic, Berber, Tuareg, Hausa, Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Gurage.
Hebrew (the language of the Jews) and Aramaic (the hypothesized language of Jesus-nearly extinct) are also included, but are only present in Middle East.
Due to the large presence of Islam in Africa and its proximity to the Middle East, many Sub-Saharan Africans are also familiar with Arabic.

There are 27 Khoi-San languages in total, now categorized as Khoe-Kwadi (13), Kx’a (4), and Tuu (7).
Examples include: !Kung (Bushmen), Hazda, !Xóõ, etc.

There are 1257 Austronesian languages in total.
Examples: Northern Betsimisaraka, Southern Betsimisaraka, Plateau Malagasy, Sakalava [Malagasy (11)].
These languages originated from Indonesia approximately 2000 years ago.

There are 1,553 Niger-Congo languages in total.
Examples include: Yoruba, Mandinka, Jola, Wolof, Fula, Ibo, Akan, Zulu, Swahili, Gikuyu, C’lela, Balanta, Mende, Temne.
There are two major branches: Non-Bantu (West Africa) and Bantu (Central, East, and Southern Africa).
This is the most linguistically numerous of Africa’s families.

Most of the Official Languages of Africa have their Origins in Colonialism
Arabic: Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
English (Anglophone): The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe
French (Francophone): Congo-Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Guinea-Conakry, Mali, Niger, Senegal
Portuguese: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau
Indigenous African: Ethiopia (Amharic and English), Nigeria (Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba)

Most African countries are ethnically and thus linguistically diverse.
Democratic Republic of the Congo (80 million people with 210 languages)
Ethiopia (90 million people with 90 languages)
Gambia (2 million people with 11 languages)
Nigeria (182 million people with 527 languages)

Explains why most Africans are multilingual (speak more than one language)
Most Africans typically know their native language, a larger regional African language, and the colonial language
Smaller native languages range from a few hundred speakers to millions
Regional languages like Hausa in Nigeria have over 50 million native speakers (often used in the marketplace)
The former colonial language tends to be the modern official language of a country and the language of status and upward mobility