Polyglotta Africana is a study published in 1854 by the German missionary Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle (1823-1902), in which the author compares 280 words from 200 African languages and dialects (or about 120 separate languages according to today's classification; several varieties considered distinct by Koelle were later shown to belong to the same language). As a comparative study it was a major breakthrough at the time.

Koelle based