Related Research Articles
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It was first issued in 1951, and is now published by SIL International, an American evangelical Christian non-profit organization.
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:
SIL International is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages, and aid minority language development.
An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding influence of language contact, if different layers of its vocabulary or morphology point in different directions and it is not clear which represents the ancestral form of the language. Some poorly known extinct languages, such as Gutian and Cacán, are simply unclassifiable, and it is unlikely the situation will ever change.
ISO 639-3:2007, Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages, is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for identifying languages. The standard was published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on 1 February 2007.
This page is a list of lists of languages.
North Levantine Arabic was defined in the ISO 639-3 international standard for language codes as a distinct Arabic variety, under the apc code. It is also known as Syro-Lebanese Arabic, though that term is also used to mean all of Levantine Arabic.
South Levantine Arabic was defined in the ISO 639-3 international standard for language codes as a distinct Arabic variety, under the ajp code. It was reported by Ethnologue as being spoken in the Southern Levant: Palestinian Territories, Israel, and most of Jordan.
Chakato is a West Chadic language spoken in Plateau State, Nigeria. It was identified by Roger Blench in 2016. It is spoken by about 500 people in one village, Dokan Tofa, which is located on the Jos-Shendam road in Plateau State. Blench (2017) suggests that Chakato may be related to spurious records of the Jorto language. Chakato speakers claim that their language is closely related to Goemai.
Daza or Dazawa is listed by Blench (2006) as a Chadic language within the Bole group, spoken in a few villages of Darazo LGA, Bauchi State, Nigeria. It was confirmed to exist in 2021. The language is nearly extinct with only elderly speakers speaking the language. Native speakers have shifted to Hausa.
Pasto is a purported Barbacoan language that was spoken by Indigenous people of Pasto, Colombia and Carchi Province, Ecuador. It is now extinct.
The Agariya language is a spurious language said to be spoken by the Agariya people, a community found in northern Chhattisgarh, western Odisha and eastern Madhya Pradesh. Although recorded in Ethnologue with an ISO code, the language is declared as 'spurious' by Glottolog and its existence was explicitly denied by noted scholar of tribal traditions Verrier Elwin, and more recently by linguist Felix Rau and Paul Sidwell. This was primarily due to suspicions of the conflating of various different 'Agariya' tribes with different dialects. Agariya shares similarities to languages such as Chhattisgarhi, Odia, and Sambalpuri. Agharia as the language claims to descent from the mixing of the languages Laria and Odia and Sambalpuri themselves, when the Laria language came in contact with Odia and Sambalpuri Dialects, leading to lexical borrowing, making so that a native speaker has only retained about 5-6 percent of the original word list.
The twelve Mambiloid languages are languages spoken by the Mambila and related peoples mostly in eastern Nigeria and in Cameroon. In Nigeria the largest group is Mambila. In Cameroon the largest group is Vute.
The Jukunoid languages are a branch of the Benue-Congo languages spoken by the Jukun and related peoples of Nigeria and Cameroon. They are distributed mostly throughout Taraba State, Nigeria and surrounding regions.
Massep is a poorly documented Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in the single village of Masep in West Pantai District, Sarmi Regency, Papua. Despite the small number of speakers, however, language use is vigorous. It is surrounded by the Kwerba languages Airoran and Samarokena.
The Orya–Tor languages are a family of just over a dozen Papuan languages spoken in Western New Guinea, Indonesia.
Ngbinda is a poorly documented Congolese Bantu language of uncertain affiliation. Prior to 1975 it had also been spoken in southern Sudan.
Iyive, also referred to as Uive, Yiive, Ndir, Asumbos, is a severely endangered Bantoid language spoken in Nigeria and Cameroon. The ethnic group defined by use of this language is the Ndir.
Spurious languages are languages that have been reported as existing in reputable works, while other research has reported that the language in question did not exist. Some spurious languages have been proven to not exist. Others have very little evidence supporting their existence, and have been dismissed in later scholarship. Others still are of uncertain existence due to limited research.
Glottolog is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-date language affiliations based on the work of expert linguists.
References
- ↑
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bhatola". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.