Djibouti

In the markets of Djibouti City, the hum of conversation flows in multiple tongues—Somali, Afar, French, and Arabic—interlacing like threads in a woven mat. The cadence of bargaining, the greetings exchanged across crowded stalls, and the melodic rise and fall of these languages create an auditory portrait of a nation shaped by centuries of migration, trade, and adaptation. Djibouti, a small yet strategically placed country in the Horn of Africa, is home to a linguistic and cultural mosaic. Somali and Afar remain the primary languages spoken by its diverse population, while French, a legacy of colonial rule, and Arabic, rooted in religious and historical ties to the wider Islamic world,...