Homeland of mankind is Africa, but there is no consensus among scientists on where exactly on the continent it is, whether in the Awash National Park in Ethiopia, the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, or in South Africa. The theory that the ancient ancestors of humans did not originate in one particular point in Africa, but in different parts of the continent is gaining popularity. The population of the African continent is very diverse in terms of both language and socio-economic and cultural aspects. The languages of the African population can be divided into the following major groups: 1) Semito-Hamitic; 2) a number of language groups from the west of the Sahara to the upper Nile, which were previously classified as Su-Danish; recent linguists' work has shown that these languages are not particularly close to each other, and some of them are close to Bantu; 3) Bantu in the south of the continent; 4) a small group of Khoi-San in South Africa; 5) the Malagasy island population whose language belongs to the Malay-Polynesian group; 6) European colonists and their descendants.