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Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.
The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of five language groups spoken in the Nuba Mountains of the Kurdufan, Sudan: Talodi–Heiban languages, Lafofa languages, Rashad languages, Katla languages and Kadu languages. The first four groups are sometimes regarded as branches of the hypothetical Niger–Congo family, whereas Kadu is now widely seen as a branch of the proposed Nilo-Saharan family.
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages, and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger-Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of the number of distinct languages, just ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.
The total number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The Languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are:
Oromo, in the linguistic literature of the early 20th century also called Galla, is an Afroasiatic language that belongs to the Cushitic branch. It is native to the Ethiopian state of Oromia and Northern Kenya and is spoken predominantly by the Oromo people and neighboring ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa. It is used as a lingua franca particularly in the Oromia Region and northeastern Kenya.
Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of varieties of Arabic spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, having many classical features not found across most of the Arabic-speaking world.
The Tagoi language is a Kordofanian language, closely related to Tegali, spoken near the town of Rashad in southern Kordofan in Sudan, about 12 N, 31 E. Unlike Tegali, it has a complex noun class system, which appears to have been borrowed from more typical Niger–Congo languages. It has several dialects, including Umali (Tumale), Goy, Moreb, and Orig. Villages are Moreb, Tagoi, Tukum, Tuling, Tumale, Turjok, and Turum.
Tigre, better known in Eritrea by its autonym Tigrayit (ትግራይት), is an Eritrean Semitic language spoken in the Horn of Africa. It belongs to the Semitic branch and is primarily spoken by the Tigre people in Eritrea. Along with Tigrinya, it is believed to be the most closely related living language to Ge'ez, which is still in use as the liturgical language of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Tigre has a lexical similarity of 71% with Ge’ez and of 64% with Tigrinya. As of 1997, Tigre was spoken by approximately 800,000 Tigre people in Eritrea. The Tigre mainly inhabit western Eritrea, though they also reside in the northern highlands of Eritrea and its extension into the adjacent part of Sudan, as well as Eritrea's Red Sea coast north of Zula.
Akan is a Central Tano language and the principal native language of the Akan people of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population can speak Akan, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. It is also spoken in parts of Côte d'Ivoire.
Fula, also known as Fulani or Fulah, is a Senegambian language spoken by around 25 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that stretches across some 18 countries in West and Central Africa. Along with other related languages such as Serer and Wolof, it belongs to the Atlantic geographic group within Niger–Congo, and more specifically to the Senegambian branch. Unlike most Niger-Congo languages, Fula does not have tones.
Komo is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Kwama (Komo) people of Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan. It is a member of the Koman languages. The language is also referred to as Madiin, Koma, South Koma, Central Koma, Gokwom and Hayahaya. Many individuals from Komo are multilingual because they are in close proximity to Mao, Kwama and Oromo speakers. Komo is closely related to Kwama, a language spoken by a group who live in the same region of Ethiopia and who also identify themselves as ethnically Komo. Some Komo and Kwama speakers recognize the distinction between the two languages and culture, whereas some people see it as one "ethnolinguistic" community. The 2007 Ethiopian census makes no mention of Kwama, and for this reason its estimate of 8,000 Komo speakers may be inaccurate. An older estimate from 1971 places the number of Komo speakers in Ethiopia at 1,500. The Komo language is greatly understudied; more information is being revealed as researchers are discovering more data about other languages within the Koman family.
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Sukuma is a Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken in an area southeast of Lake Victoria between Mwanza, Shinyanga, and Lake Eyasi.
Moro is a Kordofanian language spoken in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan. It is part of the Western group of West Central Heiban Kordofonian languages and belongs to the Niger-Congo phylum. In 1982 there were an estimate of 30.000 Moro-speakers, yet it must be noted that this was before the second Sudan civil war and therefore the recent number of speakers might differ. There can be noted an influence of Arabic and it is suspected that today approximately a fourth of all Moro vocabulary has a relation or an origin in the Arabic language.
Nding is a (critically) endangered Niger–Congo language in the Talodi family of Kordofan, Sudan.
Karko is a Hill Nubian language spoken in the northwestern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. It is spoken by around 7,000 people in the Karko hills, 35 km west of Dilling, including Dulman, although Jakobi Angelika & Hamdan Ahma estimate the Karko population at up to 15,000 individuals, mostly in urban centers. Ethnologue reports that speakers of Karko are shifting to Sudanese Arabic.
Kadaru is a Hill Nubian or Kordofan Nubian language spoken in the northern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. It is spoken by around 25,000 people in the Jibaal as-Sitta hills, between Dilling and Delami. Kordofan Nubian is a cluster of dialects also called Ajang Language with names of dialects varying according to specific clans. According to Ajang people, they all belong to one language group and although some sounds and words might have changed with time, they can understand each other quite well. It is closely related to Ghulfan, with which it forms the Kadaru-Ghulfan subgroup of Hill Nubian.
Amonap, also known as Apalakiri, is a Cariban language spoken by the Kuikuro and Kalapalo peoples of Brazil, and formerly by the Matipu. It is spoken in seven villages along the Culuene River in the Xingu Indigenous Park of Mato Grosso.
Juray is a Munda language of India, spoken in Gajapati district in southern Odisha. It is very close to Sora: Gregory Anderson (2008:299) considers Juray to be a Sora dialect. It is currently severely endangered.
Logorik, Subori, or Saburi, is a (critically) endangered language spoken in Eastern Sudan and Western Chad.
References
- 1 2 Katla at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ↑ Katla language at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
- 1 2 Tucker, Archibald N.; Bryan, Margaret A. (1966). The Katla Group. In Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa: London: Oxford University Press.
- 1 2 Nüsslein, Ulrike (2020). A Grammar of Kordofanian Julut with Particular Consideration of the Verbal Morphology. Köln: Köppe. pp. 30–31.
- ↑ Meinhof, Carl. 1916-1917. Sprachstudien im egyptischen Sudan 14: Katla. Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen VII. 212-235. p.224
- ↑ Meinhof, Carl. 1916-1917. Sprachstudien im egyptischen Sudan 14: Katla. Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen VII. 212-235. p.223
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