The biggest expansion 'since the 1940s'

British Broadcasting corporation, the BBC World Service will launch 11 new language services as part of its biggest expansion "since the 1940s", the corporation has announced.

The new languages, six of which are from Africa are Afaan Oromo Language of Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, Amharic, the Ethiopian official language, and Tigrinya, the main working language of Eritrea, along with Arabic. From Nigeria Igbo spoken both in Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, the Yoruba language spoken beyond Nigeria's borders especially in Benin and Togo and Pidgin language which is a lingua franca in west Africa. Both Igbo and Yoruba are official languages in Nigeria.

In Asia, the expansion will include Gujarati: native to the Indian state of Gujarat but found around the Indian subcontinent and the world, Marathi: from the Indian state of Maharashtra, including India's commercial capital Mumbai, Telugu: Huge numbers of speakers, like many Indian languages, primarily in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Punjabi: one of the world's most populous languages, it is widely-spoken in Pakistan and parts of India.

The expansion is a result of the funding boost announced by the UK government last year.

The first new services are expected to launch in 2017.