![]() | This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: The source on which this article is based covers up to 2011, before secession of South Sudan. Content about present-day Sudan and present-day South Sudan needs to be untangled.(October 2020) |
Languages of Sudan | |
---|---|
![]() Bilingual Arabic–English street sign in Khartoum | |
Official | Arabic, English |
Regional | Beja, Nubian, Fur |
Vernacular | Sudanese Arabic |
Minority | Masalit, Zaghawa, Tigre, [1] Languages of the Nuba Mountains |
Foreign | Hausa, Fula, Kanuri, English |
Signed | Sudanese sign languages |
Keyboard layout |
Part of a series on the |
Culture of Sudan |
---|
![]() |
Languages |
Cuisine |
Sport |
Sudan is a multilingual country dominated by Sudanese Arabic. In the 2005 constitution of the Republic of Sudan, the official languages of Sudan are Literary Arabic and English.
Most languages spoken in Africa fall into four language families. [2] Three of them—Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan—are represented in Sudan. [2] Each is divided into groups that are in turn subdivided into sets of closely related languages. [2] Two or more major groups of each of the three families are present in Sudan, historically both a north–south and an east–west migration crossroads. [2] As of 2024 [update] , Ethnologue lists 81 languages spoken in Sudan. [3]
The most widely spoken language in Sudan is Arabic, a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, represented by the Sudanese dialect. [2] Cushitic, another major branch of Afro-Asiatic, is represented by Bedawiye (with several dialects), spoken by the largely nomadic Beja people. [2] [4] Nevertheless, some of them speak the Semitic Tigre language. Chadic, a third Afro-Asiatic branch, is represented by its most important single language, Hausa, a West African tongue used in Nigeria by the Hausa people and employed by many other West Africans in Sudan as a lingua franca. [2] Several lingua francas have emerged, and many peoples have become genuinely multilingual, fluent in a native language spoken at home, a lingua franca, and perhaps other languages. [2] Arabic, however, has several different forms, and not all who master one are able to use another. [2] Among the varieties noted by scholars are classical Arabic, the language of the Quran, not a widespread spoken language and mostly used in Islamic rites and poetry. [2] Although some Muslims might become acquainted with classical Arabic in the course of rudimentary religious schooling, very few except the most educated know it by rote. [2]
Modern Standard Arabic, derived from classical Arabic, is used by the educated in travel outside the country. [2] Then there are at least two kinds of colloquial Arabic in Sudan—that spoken in roughly the eastern half of the country and known as Sudanese or Omdurmani colloquial Arabic, and that spoken in Western Sudan, closely akin to the colloquial Arabic spoken in Chad. [2] There are other colloquial forms. [2]
Modern Standard Arabic is in principle the same everywhere in the Arab world and generally permits communication among educated persons whose mother tongue is one or another form of colloquial Arabic. [2] It has been the language used in Sudan's central government, the press, Sudan television, and Radio Omdurman. [2] The latter also broadcast in classical Arabic. [2] One observer, writing in the early 1970s, noted that Arabic speakers (and others who had acquired the language informally) in western Sudan found it easier to understand the Chadian colloquial Arabic used by Chad Radio than the Modern Standard Arabic used by Radio Omdurman. [2] This may also be the case elsewhere in rural Sudan, where villagers and nomads speak a local dialect of Arabic. [2]
Niger-Kordofanian is first divided into Niger–Congo and Kordofanian. [2] The widespread Niger–Congo language group includes many divisions and subdivisions of languages. [2] Represented in Sudan are Azande and several other tongues of the Adamawa-Eastern language division, and Fulani of the West Atlantic division. [2] The Kordofanian stock comprises only 30 to 40 languages spoken in a limited area of Sudan—the Nuba Mountains and their environs. [2]
The designation of a Nilo-Saharan superstock has not been fully accepted by linguists, and its constituent groups and subgroups are not firmly fixed, in part because many of the languages have not been well studied. [2] Assuming the validity of this language family and its internal divisions, then 10 of its 12 major divisions and many of their subdivisions are well represented in Sudan, where roughly 75 languages, well over half of those named in the 1955–56 census, could be identified as Nilo-Saharan. [2] Many of these languages are only used by small groups of people. [2] Only six or seven of them were spoken by 1 percent or more of Sudan's 1956 population. [2] Perhaps another dozen were the home languages of 0.5 to 1 percent. [2] Included among Nilo-Saharan languages are Masalit in North Darfur; various Nubian dialects of Northern Sudan; and Jieng (Dinka) and Naadh (Nuer) in Southern Sudan. [2]
Many other languages are spoken by a few thousand or even a few hundred people. [2] Sudan also has multiple regional sign languages, which are not mutually intelligible. By 2009 a proposal for a unified language had been worked out, but is not widely known. [5]
Under the 1998 constitution, only Arabic was the official language. [6] [2] Nonetheless, English was acknowledged as the principal language in the South into the 1990s. [2] It was also the chief language at the University of Khartoum and was the language of secondary schools even in the North before 1969. [2] In the early 1970s in the South, the first two years of primary school were taught in the local language. [2] Thereafter, through secondary school, either Arabic or English could be the medium of instruction (English and Arabic were regarded as of equal importance); the language not used as a medium was taught as a subject. [2] At the time when this option was established, roughly half the general secondary schools (equivalent to grades seven through nine) were conducted in Arabic and half in English in what were then Bahr al-Ghazal and AlIstiwai States. [2]
The new policy for higher education announced by the Sudanese government in 1990, however, dictated that Arabic would be the language of instruction in all institutions of higher learning (see Education in Sudan). [2] This policy was reversed by provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 that were incorporated into Sudan's Interim National Constitution. [2] These provisions established both Arabic and English as official working languages of the national government and as the languages of instruction in higher education. [2] The constitution declared further that "all indigenous languages of the Sudan are national languages and shall be respected, developed, and promoted", and it allowed any legislative body below the national level to adopt any other national language(s) as additional official working language(s) within that body's jurisdiction. [2] These changes began working their way into public life and into secondary and higher education. [2]
The literacy rate is 70.2% of total population, male: 79.6%, female: 60.8%. [7]
The 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:
Kanuri is a Saharan dialect continuum of the Nilo–Saharan language family spoken by the Kanuri and Kanembu peoples in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, as well as by a diaspora community residing in Sudan.
The Baggāra or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile river near south Kordofan, numbering over six million. They are known as Baggara and Abbala in Sudan, and as Shuwa Arabs in Cameroon, Nigeria and Western Chad. The term Shuwa is said to be of Kanuri origin.
The Fur are an ethnic group predominantly inhabiting Darfur, the western part of Sudan, where they are the largest ethnic group. They speak the Fur language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family.
Sudanese Arabic, also referred to as the Sudanese dialect, Colloquial Sudanese or locally as Common Sudanese refers to the various related varieties of Arabic spoken in Sudan as well as parts of Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Chad. Sudanese Arabic has also influenced a number of Arabic-based pidgins and creoles, including Juba Arabic, widely used in South Sudan, as well as Ki-Nubi, spoken by the Nubi communities of Kenya and Uganda.
The Masalit are an ethnic group inhabiting western Sudan and eastern Chad. They speak the Masalit language.
Masalit is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Maban language group spoken by the Masalit people in Ouaddaï Region, Chad and West Darfur, Sudan.
Daza is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Daza people inhabiting northern Chad and eastern Niger. The Daza are also known as the Gouran (Gorane) in Chad. Dazaga is spoken by around 700,000 people, primarily in the Djurab Desert region and the Borkou region, locally called Haya or Faya-Largeau northern-central Chad, the capital of the Dazaga people. Dazaga is spoken in the Tibesti Mountains of Chad, in eastern Niger near N'guigmi and to the north. It is also spoken to a smaller extent in Libya and in Sudan, where there is a community of 3,000 speakers in the city of Omdurman. There's also a small diaspora community working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The Kadu languages, also known as Kadugli–Krongo or Tumtum, are a small language family of the Kordofanian geographic grouping, once included in Niger–Congo. However, since Thilo Schadeberg (1981), Kadu is widely seen as Nilo-Saharan. Evidence for a Niger-Congo affiliation is rejected, and a Nilo-Saharan relationship is controversial. A conservative classification would treat the Kadu languages as an independent family.
The languages of Ethiopia include the official languages of Ethiopia, its national and regional languages, and a large number of minority languages, as well as foreign languages.
The main languages spoken in Eritrea are Tigrinya, Tigre, Kunama, Bilen, Nara, Saho, Afar, and Beja. The country's working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic, English, and formely Italian.
There are over 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language and most widely spoken lingua franca is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin – an English-based creole – is spoken by over 60 million people.
Chadian Arabic, also known as Shuwa Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic cattle herders. Most of its speakers live in central and southern Chad. Its range is an east-to-west oval in the Sahel. Nearly all of this territory is within Chad and Sudan. It is also spoken elsewhere in the vicinity of Lake Chad in the countries of Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. Finally, it is spoken in slivers of the Central African Republic. In addition, this language serves as a lingua franca in much of the region. In most of its range, it is one of several local languages and often not among the major ones.
Zaghawa is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Zaghawa people of east-central Chad and northwestern Sudan (Darfur). The people who speak this language call it Beria, from Beri, the endonym of the Zaghawa people, and a, Zaghawa for "mouth". It has been estimated that there are about 447,400 native speakers of the Zaghawa language, who primarily live in Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan. It is also spoken by a smaller number of people in Libya.
South Sudan is a multilingual country, with over 60 indigenous languages spoken. The official language of the country is English which was introduced in the region during the colonial era.
Tanzania is a multilingual country. There are many languages spoken in the country, none of which is spoken natively by a majority or a large plurality of the population. Swahili and English, the latter of which was inherited from colonial rule, are widely spoken as lingua francas. They serve as working languages in the country, with Swahili being the official national language. There are more speakers of Swahili than of English in Tanzania.
Kadaru is a Hill 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.
The Nuba Mountains, located in the West Kordofan and South Kordofan states in the south of Sudan, are inhabited by a diverse set of populations speaking various languages not closely related to one another.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link)