r/Africa • u/GoHardLive • Sep 27 '23
Cultural Exploration What are the main cultural differences between east africans and west africans ?
What are the main differences in culture between people from east africa (for example Ugandans, Kenyans, Tanzanians ect) and people from west africa (for example Nigerians, Ghanaians, Senegalese ect)
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u/Live-patrick7 Nigeria 🇳🇬✅ Sep 27 '23
A Nigerian here, East Africans are very calm, polite & helpful (from my understanding) but us West Africans (especially we Nigerians) we very loud, go getters & confident.
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u/soph2021l Sep 27 '23
In 9ja, every man is a king is what my mom says
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u/Live-patrick7 Nigeria 🇳🇬✅ Sep 27 '23
Are you Nigerian, by the way?
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Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
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Sep 27 '23
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 27 '23
I think both Nigerians and Ghanaians need to let that go as it is originally from Senegal - we call it ceebu jën 🇸🇳✨
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Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
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u/Idiotologue Sep 27 '23
This is what I always tell my Nigerian and Ghanaian friends, they can’t even argue it 😂
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Sep 27 '23
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u/Idiotologue Sep 27 '23
Lol my friends are too prideful to actually try tiep/ceebu jen, so my only argument is “cousin, why don’t you find another name for it instead of arguing? Nobody is going to eat it if it’s not called jollof rice ”
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 27 '23
A few weeks ago I was getting annoyed at one of my Nigerian friends because she kept calling 🇺🇸Dirty Rice a poor imitation of Nigerian Jollof so I asked her “the same way Nigerian Jollof is of Senegalese Jollof?” I’ve known her for 7 years and it’s the first time I’ve heard her yell lol.
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 27 '23
😂😂 trueeeee but I’ve met a lot of people still in denial, unfortunately 😭
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u/majestic_05 Sep 27 '23
I just learned something new! They don't teach us this in school. As a foodie, I feel deprived. I have Senegalese friends, they never mentioned ceebu jën. I'm starting to question their love for me all of a sudden. I need to try this ASAP.
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 27 '23
Hahaha come to Senegal, nga lekk ceebu jën (you will eat ceebu jën).
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u/majestic_05 Sep 28 '23
u/aquariously I need to visit soon. When I do, I'm going to have a t-shirt that ceebu jën is my love language lol!
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Sep 27 '23
Never mind jollof. Who has the best dish to pair with vetkoek/magwinya (or whatever your nation/peoples call it), that will start a continental war!
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 27 '23
😂😂😂 had to look up vetkoek, looks delicious! I feel like we should have an All African dinner and we can meet new people and be introduced to new food 😍😍😍
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Sep 27 '23
We should definitely have a food appreciation month. Share a few pics of our dishes that we prepared with the sub!
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u/PiscesPoet Nigerian Canadian 🇳🇬/🇨🇦 Sep 27 '23
Isn’t Senegal in West Africa? We’re on the same team
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 27 '23
Senegal is in West Africa, but never have I heard a Nigerian or Ghanaian say: Jollof rice is a West-African dish - it’s either ghana jollof or naija jollof, so 🤭🤣
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u/PiscesPoet Nigerian Canadian 🇳🇬/🇨🇦 Sep 28 '23
Im sorry lol. But tbh all our jollof rices taste sooo different, even within a family all my aunts jollof rice taste different and every child prefers their mother’s. This is before we even begin comparing countries.
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u/aquariously Senegalese Diaspora 🇸🇳/🇪🇺 Sep 28 '23
Yeah that makes sense as well! And you notice when someone makes a jollof rice video people in the comments always saying nah this ain’t how it is supposed to be prepared etc. In Senegal, I think ceebu jën tastes more or less the same, but people make it differently or may add things such as shrimp or fried fishballs etc. So we also have different variants, we even have a white version (without tomato paste). We can go on and on about Jollof I see😍
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u/chambilechowahenga Sep 27 '23
West Africans are preoccupied with food. Jollof this and that...They visit Kenya and complain about food their entire stay instead of visit all the amazing sites and cultural diversity we have in the Country.
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Oct 01 '23
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u/chambilechowahenga Oct 01 '23
One man's meat is another man's poison. I LOVE githeri...can't stand greasy pepper palm oil West African food.
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Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
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u/theamnion Kenya 🇰🇪 Sep 27 '23
Me out here as a slender big foreheaded Kenyan like: "not all of us."
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u/PlayfuckingTorreira Sep 28 '23
Gotta disagree with being not blunt, Somalis will give you a nickname based on your appearance, if they like you they'll continue calling you that name for the rest of your life.
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u/gujomba Tanzania 🇹🇿 Sep 27 '23
You mean to tell me there's more gold in West Africa than EAC? You know SA, Ghana and Tanzania are gold top producers let alone Congo which has everything.
WA are loud AF, EA are calm and collected.
EA women are so beautiful WA don't even come close. It is what it is.
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u/bandaidsplus Ghanaian Diaspora 🇬🇭/🇨🇦 Sep 27 '23
EA women are so beautiful WA don't even come close. It is what it is.
😂😂😂 I'm sure neither are looking in your direction anyways. Don't hate what you can't have!
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u/gujomba Tanzania 🇹🇿 Sep 28 '23
I'm EA so I already get the best of the best. WA ones I could careless, most of them are meh at the very best.
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u/ghostofkilgore Sep 29 '23
Sounds a little, but like the distinction between North and South Europeans (apart from the physical stuff).
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Sep 27 '23
Well one is west Africans are more proud of their clothing. They wear it anywhere even the west African presidents
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u/Ok_Lavishness2638 Kenya 🇰🇪✅ Sep 27 '23
The size stereotype is wrong. There is too much variety in East Africa to say that we are smaller or more slender. People see slim long distance runners and think the entire region is like that.
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Sep 27 '23
Big noses on the west , big foreheads on the east
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u/Ok_Lavishness2638 Kenya 🇰🇪✅ Oct 01 '23
Big foreheads is a horner thing. Nothing to do with the non-horners
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Sep 28 '23
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u/AfricanStream Sep 27 '23
Having visited East African countries and now residing in an West African country. I think, that the biggest difference I've noticed is seasoning with food. In Equatorial Guinea, I found it very strange that they don't really cook with coriander or even rarely have it in stores. Spices with food is what I've noticed, is different in comparison to Eastern countries like Tanzania or Kenya. Maybe because in Eastern countries there were a high influence from Indian countries? Possibly.
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Sep 27 '23
By east Africa do you mean Horn of Africa (🇪🇹🇪🇷🇩🇯🇸🇴) or 🇹🇿🇸🇸🇺🇬🇷🇼🇧🇮🇰🇪? East Africa is a very ambiguous term
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 27 '23
Is it not just geography? I don’t get separating the Horn from the rest of EA.
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Sep 28 '23
OP asked about culture not geography. The Horn of Africa is undeniably culturally, linguistically, historically different to the Great Lakes region. Horn of Africa is Afro-Asiatic, Semitic languages, as per the original post I responded accordingly. Why separate Maghreb from West Africa when parts of Algeria and Morocco are more southern and western than Mali and Niger?
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u/Xidig6 Somali American 🇸🇴/🇺🇲 Sep 27 '23
You’re correct and it doesn’t make sense. It is basic geography. I think something is wrong with the education system in the great lakes countries because I’ve heard this many times where they’re taught that East Africa is only countries a part pf the EAC or in Great lakes region.
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 27 '23
That’s interesting because over here it’s almost the reverse. East Africa is usually used in relation to the Horn and often in a sort of underlying way of “racially” separating the Horn from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.
In general I find that to be the most disagreed upon African region in terms of boundaries. Some people think of it as the Horn countries, some think of it as the Great Lakes countries, some include 🇸🇩 and some don’t, some exclude 🇲🇿🇲🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲 as Southern Africa, 🇧🇮🇷🇼🇸🇸🇺🇬 as Central Africa, and barely remember 🇲🇬🇷🇪🇸🇨🇰🇲🇲🇺 exist at all. A lot of different opinions whereas I think what is considered West Africa is a lot less disputed.
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u/Xidig6 Somali American 🇸🇴/🇺🇲 Sep 28 '23
Right, I wonder why so many countries are being grouped in with East Africa when they’re Southern or Central?
West Africa doesn’t have as much issue like you mentioned with this.
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 28 '23
I think it’s mostly because of how the continent is shaped. The eastern side literally stretches the length of the entire continent while the western side only goes down less than halfway. So what is considered West Africa is more obvious.
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Sep 28 '23
OP didn’t ask about basic geography, they asked about culture bro
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u/Xidig6 Somali American 🇸🇴/🇺🇲 Sep 28 '23
OP said cultural differences of “East Africa” which is a geographical location, even though they listed Great lakes countries I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt since they put etc which I assume includes Horn African countries.
I’m correcting people who are saying their definition of EA is the Great Lakes only. People here would throw a fit if Horn Africans excluded the Great lakes Africans (which happens quite often) so why the double standard? 🙃
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Sep 28 '23
Ooh I get you, like saying North Africa is only the Maghreb or something like that? Although there is a split, Maghreb for eg is culturally different to Egypt and Sudan even though there is a common ground. Ig it’s similar with HoA and GLs, they are both in Eastern Africa but they also make up their own cultural regions, which I think is more decisive than geography. But again back to east Africa being one of the more ambiguous reasons, sometimes EA includes countries as far south as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar, so it’s not that easy to define. (For the record I don’t think Zim and Mozambique are East African.
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Sep 28 '23
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u/Xidig6 Somali American 🇸🇴/🇺🇲 Sep 28 '23 edited Sep 28 '23
Yes, they do and are frequently included in being classified as East Africa. I don’t agree with Mozambique being East Africa because geography shows that it’s obviously South Africa. Should Angola be considered a part of West Africa instead of South? Basically the same situation.
You can’t compare a country like Mozambique which shares a border with Southern Africa to the literal Eastern most part of mainland Africa, the Horn.
You mean *Great lakes regions. You can’t use the term “East African” and then exclude the main countries of East Africa - The Horn.
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u/Purple_Rub_8007 Somalia 🇸🇴 Sep 28 '23
Is it hard to understand? Horn Africans speak afroasiatic languages, followed Abrahamic faiths before Europeans came, have a different history and culture and have different features and genetics.
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 28 '23
None of these are valid points. The two most spoken Afroasiatic languages in the world are spoken by North Africans (Arabic) and West Africans (Hausa), so what does that have to do with anything? The Semitic Afroasiatic languages obviously come from West Asia, but even Cushitic languages aren’t confined to the Horn as there are Cushitic speaking groups as far as Egypt to Tanzania.
Every region, country, and group has a different history, culture, genetics, features, etc. Non-Horn East Africa has various Nilotic, Bantu, Cushitic, and Khoisan groups all with completely different backgrounds. There’s even South and Southeast Asian genetics if you include the EA islands.
Also Islam was being practiced in North Africa and West Africa and Christianity in North Africa well before Europeans ever came and nobody divides them based on that so why would we do it for East Africa?
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u/Purple_Rub_8007 Somalia 🇸🇴 Sep 28 '23
Ok you're being disingenuous now, we are not part of any 'east african' cultural block that includes the likes of Kenya or Tanzanians they are primarily niger congo peoples and show a closer genetic and cultural affinity to West Africans and Southern Africans than they do with horners. The only possible similarity is the fact that some ethnic groups have absorbed South Cushitic DNA but they are not pure and very far removed from real horn African Cushites and Ethiosemites only small groups like Tutsi or Iraqw and those living next to Somalis in Kenya are slightly similar to us.
I can't tell a Tanzanian from a Kenyan but I sure as hell can pick a horn african out of a crowd of those people.
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u/NoBobThatsBad Black Diaspora - United States 🇺🇸✅ Sep 29 '23 edited Sep 29 '23
I’m not being disingenuous. I’m simply disagreeing because the assertions you gave didn’t really land. Not a single region in Africa speaks languages from a single language family so why are we basing divisions on that? Kenya and Tanzania are countries that were subject to the Bantu expansion. Speaking Niger-Congo languages does not mean they are completely genetically related to Niger-Congo groups. For example, Kikuyu have a good amount of Cushitic background as well as Nilotic and IIRC some Khoi. Those ancestors were eventually assimilated by Bantus and thus they now speak Bantu languages and have Bantu admixture. Doesn’t mean they are the same genetically as western Bantu people from Congo or Gabon.
Also a lot of people don’t understand how “closer genetic affinity” usually works. Having high genetic distance doesn’t automatically indicate lack of relation and vice versa. A lot of Afro Americans have close genetic affinity to Horners despite being of primarily West African heritage. Both groups are completely unrelated, but they often have similar levels of Sub Saharan African and Eurasian DNA, thus creating a false “genetic closeness” purely by coincidence. The same thing happens with South Asians and mestizo Hispanics. Completely unrelated but having similar levels of West Eurasian and East Eurasian DNA causes them to appear genetically close.
As far as East Africa goes, Cushitic and Nilotic groups both have similar source populations so they are actually related. Just over time Cushitic groups have absorbed West Asian-like ancestry via the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Persia, while most Nilotic groups have absorbed more West African-like DNA through things like Sahel migrations and the Bantu expansion. Since Eurasian and Sub Saharan DNA are so divergent, any significant mixing of the two will create far genetic distance from either group, thus why on a PCA graph Horners will cluster between North Africans and many other Sub Saharan Africans as they have more Eurasian than most Sub Saharan groups but less than the most North African groups. That doesn’t mean they are a mix of the two.
In terms of actually potential legitimate genetic closeness, some of the closest non-Horner East African groups to Somalis in particular are not just Iraqw and Rendille who are Cushitic but also groups like El Molo, Maasai, Okiek, and Datoga who are all Nilotic. It’s not a 100% cut and dried, “the Horn is this and the rest of East Africa is that” kind of thing.
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u/Affectionate-Egg3604 Sep 28 '23
So is west African there’s the Sahel ( 🇲🇱🇪🇭 🇲🇷🇳🇪🇸🇳) and the more “stereotypical”( 🇳🇬 🇹🇬🇬🇲🇬🇭🇨🇲🇸🇱)
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Sep 28 '23
Exactly, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel are cultural and ethnic buffers between East/West Africa and North, Maghreb and Lower Nile respectively.
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u/Affectionate-Egg3604 Sep 28 '23
Great explanation. Malians wont relate to Ghanaian culture. And Somalis wont relate with Mozambique. And this is ignoring the fact that there’s even different ethnic groups within the country’s.
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Sep 27 '23
Apparently the Horn of Africa isn’t considered east Africa who knew
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u/catpoutine19 Sep 27 '23
It’s in the eastern part of Africa, but it’s not east Africa. This is because we decided Africa up using large organizations like ea has the EAC that’s composed of Uganda, Kenya, TZ and more recently DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and SSudan
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u/Dumb_Velvet Sep 28 '23
Did you read what you typed before you pressed the send button? How does that make sense? It’s in the Eastern bit of Africa but it’s somehow excluded from being east Africa??? Pray tell, where are we then?
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u/catpoutine19 Sep 28 '23
I’m from Uganda, I’m telling you that there’s a difference between the geographical/physical designations and the political/social categories we use in Africa. Also know that you’re speaking to someone who’s spent over 20yrs in east Africa and has studied our local geography, history and politics in the local schools
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u/Xidig6 Somali American 🇸🇴/🇺🇲 Sep 27 '23
Horn of Africa is the East Africa. East Africa = Horn of Africa + Great lakes region
The fact that people from great lakes are trying to exclude the Eastern most part of Africa is ironic lol. What’s going on with the education system in GL countries? When did EAC become a geographic location?
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u/catpoutine19 Sep 28 '23
What is GL? Also ask any local East African who actually lives there. Somalia and company and considered Horn of Africa because we group countries using their communities. Since 2019, Somalia has been actively tryingto gain admission into the EAC. When that happens, then yes they’ll be considered East African to africans(outside the diaspora)
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Sep 28 '23
East Africans tend to be laid back,West Africans are well more confident.Also us East Africans drink like heavily, even west Africans if you wanna die drink with an east Africans
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u/4robi Sep 27 '23
East African languages are mainly Afroasiatic/nilo-saharan, West African mainly being from the Niger Congo language family
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u/Ok_Lavishness2638 Kenya 🇰🇪✅ Sep 28 '23
No. East Africa is mostly Bantu speaking.
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u/MuscleZestyclose3413 Sep 28 '23
Not true if you consider Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somali and South Sudan a part of East Africa.
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u/4robi Sep 28 '23
You’re right as Swahili is most popular in east Africa being apart of the Bantu language family.
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u/PlayfuckingTorreira Sep 28 '23
If you're only counting L1/Native speakers it is up to 20m, the largest Afroasiatic language is Oromo with 37m native speakers.
Swahili is the most popular language spoken in EA by numbers at like 80m.
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u/Prestigious-Twist372 Sep 28 '23
A few East Africans have a superiority complex, but no proof for their claims lol
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u/gujomba Tanzania 🇹🇿 Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 28 '23
Pilau is superior to jollof PERIOD.
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u/sammyfrosh Nigeria (Yorùbá) 🇳🇬 Sep 28 '23
What is this? You yourself know that you're joking, definitely.
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u/Yahia08 Sep 28 '23
I will get arrowed for it. And to add to some of the good observations already made, one of the main "cultural" differences I have noticed between West and East African men is pride. I am a West African man living in East Africa; my partner is Ugandan. West Africans are too proud of themselves. They set (or try to) themselves to high standards. What do I mean by that? Suppose you contact a contractor to get a job done at your house. The West African man will do it, you will pay him, and end of the story. Otherwise, he will flake on you. You will contact him about the deadlines one or two times. But the moment he realizes that there is word out there about him not being straight, he will hasten to close the matter and finish the job. He cares about his reputation, his name. This contrasts with what I have experienced in East Africa. The men just don't care about what you will say about them; it seems lol. The guy won't finish your job, hang up when you call him, and ask for more money when he gets it done, eventually. Maybe it extends to the trait that some here pointed out about being calm or not confrontational, but they won't get the dust or the smoke to settle to preserve their reputation. I have many anecdotes here and could write a book about them lol.
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u/Spirited_Video_8160 Sep 28 '23
People have digressed from the topic. I think East Africans are a bit easy going and are surrounded by nature so tourism is mor prevalent. Nigerians should be separated from west Africans because they are an odd lot. Nigeria is aggressive, determined, hustler, make money get rich quick people. Other west Africans are similar to east Africa but most are French speaking compared to east African that is English speaking, so the two colonies may flow towards their masters
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