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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.
Shona is a Bantu language of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. The term is variously used to collectively describe all the Central Shonic varieties or specifically Standard Shona, a variety codified in the mid-20th century. Using the broader term, the language is spoken by over 14,000,000 people.
Swazi or siSwati is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Eswatini and South Africa by the Swati people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 4.7 million including first and second language speakers. The language is taught in Eswatini and some South African schools in Mpumalanga, particularly former KaNgwane areas. Siswati is an official language of Eswatini, and is also one of the twelve official languages of South Africa.
Somali is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch. It is spoken primarily in Greater Somalia, and by the Somali diaspora as a mother tongue. Somali is an official language in both Somalia and Ethiopia, and serves as a national language in Djibouti, it is also a recognised minority language in Kenya. The Somali language is officially written with the Latin alphabet although the Arabic script and several Somali scripts like Osmanya, Kaddare and the Borama script are informally used.
Lowland East Cushitic is a group of roughly two dozen diverse languages of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Its largest representatives are Oromo and Somali.
The Rendille are a Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Eastern Province of Kenya.
The endoglossic language of Somalia has always been Somali, although throughout Somalia's history various exoglossic languages have also been used at a national level.
Harold Crane Fleming was an American anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stressed the integration of physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems.
Baiso or Bayso is an Afro-Asiatic, more specifically a Lowland East Cushitic language belonging to the Omo-Tana subgroup, and is spoken in Ethiopia, in the region around Lake Abaya.
El Molo is a possibly extinct language belonging to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. It was spoken by the El Molo people on the southeastern shore of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya. Alternate names to El Molo are Dehes, Elmolo, Fura-Pawa, and Ldes. It was thought to be extinct in the middle part of the 20th century, but a few speakers were found in the later 20th century. Most of the El Molo population have shifted to the neighboring Samburu language. El Molo also has no known dialects but it is similar to Daasanach.
Aweer (Aweera), also known as Boni, is a Cushitic language of Eastern Kenya. The Aweer people, known by the arguably derogatory exonym "Boni," are historically a hunter-gatherer people, traditionally subsisting on hunting, gathering, and collecting honey. Their ancestral lands range along the Kenyan coast from the Lamu and Ijara Districts into Southern Somalia's Badaade District.
Rendille is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by the Rendille people inhabiting northern Kenya. It is part of the family's Cushitic branch.
The Somali languages form a group that are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. They are spoken as a mother tongue by ethnic Somalis in Horn of Africa and the Somali diaspora. Even with linguistic differences, Somalis collectively view themselves as speaking dialects of a common language.
The Omo–Tana languages are a branch of the Cushitic family and are spoken in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. The largest member is Somali. There is some debate as to whether the Omo–Tana languages form a single group, or whether they are individual branches of Lowland East Cushitic. Blench (2006) restricts the name to the Western Omo–Tana languages, and calls the others Macro-Somali.
The Aweer are a Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the Coast Province in southeastern Kenya. They are indigenous foragers, traditionally subsisting on hunting, gathering, and collecting honey.
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.
Berom or Birom is the most widely spoken Plateau language in Nigeria. The language is locally numerically important and is consistently spoken by Berom of all ages in rural areas. However, the Berom are shifting to Hausa in cities. The small Cen and Nincut dialects may be separate languages. Approximately 1 million (2010) people speak in this language.
Girirra also called Gariire is a Cushitic language of Ethiopia. It has extensive borrowing from Somali. Although not mutually intelligible with Somali, it is estimated that around 70% of the Garirra language is made up of Somali loan words. There has not been many studies on the language itself and is often grouped into a small umbrella of the Macro-Somali language family including relatives like: Rendille, Boni, Bayso, and the two dialects of Somali, being Af-Maay, and Af-Maxaa.
Proto-Cushitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor of the Cushitic language family. Its words and roots are not directly attested in any written works, but have been reconstructed through the comparative method, which finds regular similarities between languages not explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities.