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The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, 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 Masalit are an ethnic group inhabiting western Sudan and eastern Chad. They speak the Masalit language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family.
Amdang is a language closely related to Fur, which together constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. It is mainly spoken in Chad, north of the town of Biltine, and sporadically elsewhere in Ouaddaï Region. There are also small colonies of speakers in Darfur near Woda'a and Fafa, and in Kordofan in the Abu Daza district and at Magrur north of Bara. Most of the ethnic group now speaks Arabic.
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.
The Sara languages comprise over a dozen Bongo–Bagirmi languages spoken mainly in Chad; a few are also spoken in the north of the Central African Republic. They are members of the Central Sudanic language family. Greenberg (1966) treats all varieties as dialects of a Sara language, whereas Tucker and Bryan (1966) consider the Sara to be a dialect cluster of several languages. Most members of the different Sara languages/dialects consider their speech form distinct languages, but there is currently insufficient language information to determine which speech varieties need to be considered distinct languages, and which are dialects of other languages.
The Maban languages are a small family of languages which have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan family. Maban languages are spoken in eastern Chad, the Central African Republic and western Sudan (Darfur).
Chad has two official languages, French and Modern Standard Arabic, and over 120 indigenous languages. A vernacular version of Arabic, Chadian Arabic, is a lingua franca and the language of commerce, spoken by 40-60% of the population. The two official languages have fewer speakers than Chadian Arabic. Standard Arabic is spoken by around 615,000 speakers. French is widely spoken in the main cities such as N'Djamena and by most men in the south of the country. Most schooling is in French.
The Wadai Sultanate was an African sultanate located to the east of Lake Chad in present-day Chad and the Central African Republic. It emerged in the seventeenth century under the leadership of the first sultan, Abd al-Karim, who overthrew the ruling Tunjur people of the area. It occupied land previously held by the Sultanate of Darfur to the northeast of the Sultanate of Baguirmi.
Kimr or Gimr is an ethnic group in West Darfur in Sudan and Chad. They speak Gimr, a dialect of Tama, a Nilo-Saharan language. The population of this ethnicity possibly is below 10,000. One 1996 source puts the population at over 50,000.
The Burgu people are a minority ethnic group found primarily in the mountainous Ouaddaï region of eastern Chad and adjacent areas of Sudan. Their population is estimated to be about 300,000 in Chad. Other estimates place the total number of Burgu people in Sudan to be about 700,000.
The Tennet people are an ethnic group in South Sudan. Their language is also called Tennet. They speak Tennet. Their neighbors, the Lopit as well as the Lotuho, refer to them as Irenge, the name they called to Buya also. Tennet had adopted the culture of Lopit but they have their own traditional dances such as Lalu, Nyaliliya, Loduk, etc. Tennet people are multilingual. They can speak the languages of the neighboring communities such as Lopit, Lotuko, Pari, Buya, Murle, and Toposa. But they have maintained a strong ethnic identity and resisted assimilation from the neighboring communities by maintaining their culture and language among themselves. They continue to speak Tennet.
The Daju people are a group of seven distinct ethnicities speaking related languages living on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border and in the Nuba Mountains. Separated by distance and speaking different languages, at present, they generally have little cultural affinity to each other.
The official languages of the Central African Republic are French and Sangho. In total there are about 72 languages in the country.
Mbugu, or Maʼa, is a mixed language of Tanzania.
Maba is a Maban language spoken in Chad and Sudan. It is divided into several dialects, and serves as a local trade language. Maba is closely related to the Masalit language.
Aiki is a Maban language of Chad. It consists of two dialects, Runga and Kibet, which are divergent enough to be considered separate languages. Kibet is spoken in Chad, while Runga (Roungo) is split between Chad and the CAR. Ayki (Aykindang) is a name used in CAR.
Mimi of Nachtigal, or Mimi-N, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1870 by Gustav Nachtigal. Nachtigal's data was subsequently published by Lukas & Völckers (1938).
Mimi of Decorse, also known as Mimi of Gaudefroy-Demombynes and Mimi-D, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled "Mimi" that was collected ca. 1900 by G. J. Decorse and published by Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Joseph Greenberg (1960) classified it as a Maban language, like the rather remote Maban relative Mimi of Nachtigal. However, George Starostin (2011) rejects this classification, arguing that similarities to Maban are due to contact with locally dominant Maba, and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.
Archibald Norman Tucker (1904-1980) was a South African-born linguist specializing in African languages, "'Archie' to his innumerable friends". He earned his MA degree at the University of Cape Town. He did some study of Bantu languages in southern Africa and also made a trip to Sudan to study languages there. He later moved to England in 1931. In London, Tucker studied under Alice Werner and Daniel Jones, earning his Ph.D. at University College London. Later he studied for a short time under Carl Meinhof in Hamburg.