Why do young African players only know english?

I was scouting Nigerian players and realised they only knew english so I went to their leagues and checked players both young and old from Nigeria and behold they only knew English (also my own language is only english after setting my home town to a city in Nigeria and being Nigerian - I haven't checked with other nationalities). I checked for other African countries and they are the same being either French or English with no languages of their own.

I was just wondering if there was any reason for this or rather just something that was overlooked?

English is the official language of Nigeria. There's a variety of local languages spoken throughout the country, but they'd only be useful in Nigeria and the Nigerian league isn't playable.

Same situation holds for a lot of Africa I think.

A lot of African countries have English as a primary language, don't they? I know Nigeria certainly does, as does Ghana.

I think it's just a lack of depth on FM's part. I would guess the lack of demand for detail in African football makes it a lower priority than other features. There are an incredible amount of languages spoken in Africa and it would take quite some time to implement that decently in FM.

I'll check on my profile later, but in older FMs I used to have English and the generic African Dialect set as my languages by default. Not sure if this only applies to South Africans. There are a lot of languages spoken in Africa, but pretty much everyone knows at least basic English.

Tanzanian and Kenyan players have (Ki)swahili as languages in addition to English. I imagine most dialects aren't included, but there are more than just English and French showing (these are by some distance the most widely spoken on the continent though). I can't imagine 'tribal' languages ever being included - far too many of them.

I have to admit things before I post this.

1. I have only loaded the South African league once before, (when dafuge ran a South African challenge).

2. Although I recently activated the South Africal structure in my San Marino league, I have never even so much as looked at it yet.

3. The limit of my knowledge of African languages is limited to that mentioned in Wilbur Smith books, (better than you might expect).

So if I look at the South African leagues and pick on the top club, (Kaiser Chiefs), then this is what I get.

South Africa has 11 Official languages. Now let's look at the players.

Nigerian GK speaks only English. As mentioned above, English is the official language of Nigeria, but I find it surprising that he doesn't have a 2nd language, (there are about 7 other "major" languages used in Nigeria). As we don't have the Nigerian league loaded, I guess that's reasonable though. If the same thing was to happen to a South African player, (remembering that the South African leagues do exist), then that would be more of a problem.

South African DC speaks Spanish, Sethoso & English. Surprised at Spanish until I see that he was born in Argentina. So he speaks a language from where he was born, he speaks English which is a commonly used language in South Africa and he speaks Sothoso which is the 7th most commonly used language in RSA.

South African SC speaks just English. It's the 4th most popular language and is the 1st language of 9.6% of the population. (Please note that that's quite different from only 9.6% of the population being able to speak English). He is from Jo'burg by the way.

South African DL speaks Afrikaans, Zulu and just (basic) English. Afrikaans is the 3rd most popular language and Zulu is the single most commonly used language.

South African MR speaks Afrikaans, English and Zulu.

Brazilian MC speaks Portugese and (basic) English which he is learning as a commonly used language.

South African SC speaks English, Sethoso & Zulu.

South African SC speaks Afrikaans, English and (basic) Zulu.

South African GK speaks Afrikaans, English and Zulu.

South African SC speaks English. He is from Cape Town by the way.

South African SC speaks English, Zulu & Sethoso.

South African MC speaks English, (basic) Sethoso and (basic) Zulu.

South African SC speaks English, (basic) Afrikaans, and (basic) Zulu.

Ghanaian GK speaks English. The official language of Ghana is English, (although they have 11 Govt sponsored languages).

South African DL speaks Sethoso.(He comes from Soweto).

South African DR speaks Sethoso & (basic) Zulu.

South African DC speaks English, Zulu and (basic) Sethoso.

South African AMR speaks Sethoso, English and Zulu.

South African SC speaks English. (He comes from Jo'burg by the way).

South African MC speaks English and (basic) Zulu.

South African AMC speaks English and Zulu.

South African DC speaks English & Zulu.

Nigerian ML speaks English.

South African DR speaks Afrikaans, Zulu and (basic) Sesotho.

Summary. So initially that looks pretty good doesn't it. Well yes, but is it random or has there been some thought given to the surname generated, (what language that name derives from), where the player was born and therefore what languages will be generated? Well yes actually. This surprised me. There does seem to be a link between the name/place of birth/language. If you look at where a player speaks only 1 language then it seems that it is the correct language, (at least reasonably), in line with where he was born. If the player speaks a non-English language then it seems linked to the language that his name is derived from.

All in all I would have to say well done SI.

Feel free to have a pop at things that don't work well in the game, but from the initial snapshot that I have taken, this seems extremely well researched.

It looks like they've modeled SA well enough then. The slight differences would maybe be because of where they're born. I've checked mine and it lists English, Zulu and Sesotho but strangely not Afrikaans even though it should be there instead of Sesotho.

As SA is an officially included country/league, I'd expect it to be relatively well done.

That's because RSA is '2nd world' and we and most of the other African countries are 3rd world! Actually we sometimes class where I am as 4th world

Good research there Jimbo, and nice to see a few varying South African languages. I can't imagine so many variations in all the other African countries - probably as 'unplayable' like Hunter says. I'm actually not so surprised to see they've been accurate on RSA languages, although that's beyond what I would have guessed. Obviously in the other nations it's less accurate (understandably).

I've never managed a club in Africa, but regularly check out players that I know from the continent, and always load 'all players of African nationality' in my database. Sadly, in the SkyBet and Skrill leagues the WP issue keeps most out of reach, but occasionally I get lucky. I like picking up promising young African players when managing in more obscure countries where WP issues are not present.

Most East African players in my game have Swahili as a language alongside English. West African players have either English or French only, no Yorobo, Akan or Hausa, probably because these are not official languages as mentioned.

English is the official language as even the major languages vary wildly from one town to the next. Swahili is listed as an official language for Uganda for example though.

So the players in the game only have official languages, not ethnic, tribal or dialects.