| Nyima | |
|---|---|
| Nyimang | |
| Ethnicity | Nyimang people |
| Geographic distribution | Sudan |
| Linguistic classification | Nilo-Saharan? |
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | nyim1244 |
 | |
The Nyima languages are a pair of languages of Sudan spoken by the Nyimang of the Nuba Mountains that appear to be most closely related to the Eastern Sudanic languages, especially the northern group of Nubian, Nara and Tama.
The languages are:
Claude Rilly (2010) [3] includes reconstructions for Proto-Nyima.
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 the 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, Saho, and Sidama.
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 Nubian languages are a group of related languages spoken by the Nubians. They form a branch of the Eastern Sudanic languages, which is part of the wider Nilo-Saharan phylum. Initially, Nubian languages were spoken throughout much of Sudan, but as a result of Arabization they are today mostly limited to the Nile Valley between Aswan and Al Dabbah. Nubian is not to be confused with the various Nuba languages spoken in villages in the Nuba mountains and Darfur.
Tama, or Damut, is the primary language spoken by the Tama people in Ouaddai, eastern Chad and in Darfur, western Sudan. It is a member of the Taman language family. Miisiirii is often considered a dialect, though it is not particularly close.
Lower Nubia is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern population, were relocated as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia; Qasr Ibrim is the only major archaeological site which was neither relocated nor submerged. The intensive archaeological work conducted prior to the flooding means that the history of the area is much better known than that of Upper Nubia.
The Daju languages are spoken in isolated pockets by the Daju people across a wide area of Sudan and Chad. In Sudan, they are spoken in parts of the regions of Kordofan, Darfur, in Chad they are spoken in Wadai. The Daju languages belong to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan.
In most classifications, the Eastern Sudanic languages are a group of nine families of languages that may constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania.
The Taman languages form a putative branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family spoken in Chad and Sudan, though Glottolog notes that "no conclusive, methodologically sound basis for assigning Tama to Eastern Sudanic" has been presented.
Sungor (Assangori) is a language of eastern Chad and western Sudan. It is spoken in an area located to the south of Biltine and to the north of Adré in Chad.
The Nara (Nera) or Barea (Barya) language is spoken by the Nara people in an area just to the north of Barentu in the Gash-Barka Region of western Eritrea. The language is often confused with Kunama, which is at best only distantly related.
Isnag is a language spoken by around 40,000 Isnag people of Apayao Province in the Cordillera Administrative Region in the northern Philippines. Around 85% of Isnag are capable of reading the Isnag language. Many Isnag speakers also speak Ilocano.
Avokaya is a Central Sudanic language spoken in southern South Sudan and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Northern Eastern Sudanic, Eastern k Sudanic, Ek Sudanic, NNT or Astaboran languages may form a primary division of the yet-to-be-demonstrated Eastern Sudanic family. They are characterised by having a /k/ in the first person singular pronoun "I/me", as opposed to the Southern Eastern Sudanic languages, which have an /n/. Nyima has yet to be conclusively linked to the other languages, and would appear to be the closest relative of Ek Sudanic rather than Ek Sudanic proper.
Sámi languages, in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe. There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, including Sámi, Sami, Saami, Saame, Sámic, Samic and Saamic, as well as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.
Nyimang, also known as Ama, is an East Sudanic language spoken in the Nuba Mountains.
Afitti is a language spoken on the eastern side of Jebel el-Dair, a solitary rock formation in the North Kordofan province of Sudan. Although the term ‘Dinik’ can be used to designate the language regardless of cultural affiliation, people in the villages of the region readily recognize the terms ‘Ditti’ and ‘Afitti.’ There are approximately 4000 speakers of the Afitti language and its closest linguistic neighbor is the Nyimang language, spoken west of Jebel el-Dair in the Nuba Mountains of the South Kordofan province of Sudan.
The Hill Nubian languages, also called Kordofan Nubian, are a dialect continuum of Nubian languages spoken by the Hill Nubians in the northern Nuba Mountains of Sudan.
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.
Laka of Lau is the only Central Sudanic language spoken in Nigeria. It is most closely related to Kabba Laka of Chad. The Hausa refer to the Laka people of Lau as Lakawa. The language was only recently documented in the mid-2010s, and had been previously misclassified as a Mbum language along with Lau.
Claude Rilly is a French linguist, Egyptologist, and archaeologist at the CNRS who primarily specializes in Meroitic and Nilo-Saharan languages.
