The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. The languages extend through 17 nations in the northern half of Africa: from Algeria to Benin in the west; from Libya to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the centre; and from Egypt to Tanzania in the east.
The Nilotic people are people indigenous to the South Sudan and the East Africa who speak the Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambella Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uganda, the north eastern border area of Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. The Nilotic peoples comprise of the Dinka, the Nuer, the Shilluk, the Luo peoples, the Alur, the Anuak, the Ateker peoples, the Kalenjin people and the Karamojong people also known as the Karamojong or Karimojong, Chaga people ,Ngasa people,Datooga, Samburu ,and the Maa-speaking peoples.
Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan speaking ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of civilization. In the southern valley of Egypt, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from Egyptians, although they intermarried with members of other ethnic groups, especially Arabs. They speak Nubian languages as a mother tongue, part of the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages, and Arabic as a second language.
The Luo are several ethnically and linguistically related Nilotic ethnic groups that inhabit an area ranging from Egypt and Sudan to South Sudan and Ethiopia, through Northern Uganda and eastern Congo (DRC), into western Kenya, and the Mara Region of Tanzania. Their Luo languages belong to the western branch of the Nilotic language family.
The Bantu expansion was a major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu-speaking group, which spread from an original nucleus around West-Central Africa. In the process, the Proto-Bantu-speaking settlers displaced, eliminated or absorbed pre-existing hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups that they encountered.
The Kalenjin is a group of tribes indigenous to East Africa, residing mainly in what was formerly the Rift Valley Province in Kenya and the eastern slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda. They number 6,358,113 individuals per the Kenyan 2019 census and an estimated 273,839 in Uganda according to the 2014 census mainly in Kapchorwa, Kween and Bukwo districts.
The Abagusii are a Bantu ethnic group indigenous to Kisii and Nyamira counties of former Nyanza, as well as parts of Kericho and Bomet counties of the former Rift Valley province of Kenya.
Christopher Ehret, who currently holds the position of Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, is an American scholar of African history and African historical linguistics particularly known for his efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archeological record. He has published many works, including Reconstructing Proto-Afrasian (1995) and Ancient Africa (2023). He has written around seventy scholarly articles on a wide range of historical, linguistic, and anthropological subjects. These works include monographic articles on Bantu subclassification; on internal reconstruction in Semitic; on the reconstruction of proto-Cushitic and proto-Eastern Cushitic; and, with Mohamed Nuuh Ali, on the classification of the Soomaali languages.
The Nilotic languages are a group of related languages spoken across a wide area between South Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples.
The Southern Nilotic languages are spoken mainly in western Kenya and northern Tanzania. They form a division of the larger Nilotic language family, along with the Western Nilotic languages and the Eastern Nilotic languages.
The Kuliak languages, also called the Rub languages, are a group of languages spoken by small relict communities in the mountainous Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda.
The Yaaku are a people who are said to have lived in regions of southern Ethiopia and central Kenya, possibly through to the 18th century. The language they spoke is today called Yaakunte. The Yaaku assimilated a hunter-gathering population, whom they called Mukogodo, when they first settled in their place of origin and the Mukogodo adopted the Yaakunte language. However, the Yaaku were later assimilated by a food producing population and they lost their way of life. The Yaakunte language was kept alive for sometime by the Mukogodo who maintained their own hunter-gathering way of life, but they were later immersed in Maasai culture and adopted the Maa language and way of life. The Yaakunte language is today facing extinction but is undergoing a revival movement. In the present time, the terms Yaaku and Mukogodo, are used to refer to a population living in Mukogodo forest west of Mount Kenya.
Nyoro or Runyoro is a Bantu language spoken by the Nyoro people of Uganda. It has two dialects: Runyoro proper and Rutagwenda. A standardized orthography was established in 1947. It's most closely related to Rutooro.
Datooga is a Nilotic language or dialect cluster of the Southern Nilotic group. It is spoken by the Datooga people of the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania. The Sukuma name Taturu is also sometimes used in English; the Swahili name Mang'ati comes from Maasai, where it means "enemy". However, it is not considered offensive to the Datooga, as there is a degree of pride in being the historic enemy of the Maasai, and Mang'ati has become the standard name for the group in Swahili. In addition, numerous tribal and dialectal names may be found for the people or language as a whole.
The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Africa, and Western Asia.
South Sudan is home to around 60 indigenous ethnic groups and 80 linguistic partitions among a 2021 population of around 11 million. Historically, most ethnic groups were lacking in formal Western political institutions, with land held by the community and elders acting as problem solvers and adjudicators. Today, most ethnic groups still embrace a cattle culture in which livestock is the main measure of wealth and used for bride wealth.
The Bantu peoples are an indigenous ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to countries spread over a vast area from West Africa, to Central Africa, Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. Bantu people also inhabit southern areas of Northeast African states.
The Kalenjin people are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to East Africa, with a presence, as dated by archaeology and linguistics, that goes back many centuries. Their history is therefore deeply interwoven with those of their neighboring communities as well as with the histories of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The Rutara peoples are a group of closely related Bantu ethnic groups native to the African Great Lakes region. They speak mutually intelligible dialects and include groups such as the Banyoro, Banyankore and Bahaya.
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