Central_Sudanic_languages

Central Sudanic languages

Central Sudanic languages

Nilo-Saharan language family of Central Africa

Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and Cameroon. They include the pygmy languages Efé and Asoa.

Quick Facts Geographic distribution, Native speakers ...

Blench (2011) suggests that Central Sudanic influenced the development of the noun-class system characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo languages.[citation needed]

Classification

Half a dozen groups of Central Sudanic languages are generally accepted as valid. They are customarily divided into East and West branches.

Blench (2023)

Blench cites the following classification:[2]

Central Sudanic 
 Eastern 
(Lendu–Mangbetu) 

Birri (1)

 West 
(Bongo–Kresh) 

Bongo–Bagirmi (40 languages)

Kresh (2)

? Sinyar–Formona

Sinyar–Formona is sparsely documented and its placement in the western branch is "provisional".

Starostin (2016)

Starostin (2016)[3] finds support for Eastern Central Sudanic (Lendu, Mangbetu, Lugbara, etc., concentrated in the northeast corner of DR Congo) but not for the western division, which would include Bongo–Bagirmi and Kresh scattered across Chad, the CAR, and South Sudan.

Central Sudanic 
 Eastern 
(Lendu–Mangbetu) 

Mangbetu (2–3)

Mangbutu–Lese (5)

Lendu (2–3)

Moru–Madi (10)

Bongo–Bagirmi (40 languages)

 Birri–Kresh 

Birri (1)

Kresh (2)

Starostin (2011) notes that the poorly attested language Mimi of Decorse is suggestive of Central Sudanic, though he provisionally treats it as an isolate. Boyeldieu (2010) states that the inclusion of Kresh has yet to be demonstrated, but Starostin (2016) finds good support, with Birri being its closest relative.

Bender (1992)

Lionel Bender (1992) classifies the Central Sudanic languages as follows, with Central Sudanic bifurcating into a Peripheral branch and a Central branch.[4]

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:[5]

More information Classification, Language ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Nilo-Saharan; Ethnologue".
  2. [2]
    Blench, Roger. 2023. In defence of Nilo-Saharan.
  3. [3]
    George Starostin (2016) The Nilo-Saharan hypothesis tested through lexicostatistics: current state of affairs
  4. [4]
    Bender, Lionel M. 1992. "Central Sudanic segmental and lexical reconstruction." Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 29: 5-61.
  5. [5]
    Chan, Eugene (2019). "The Nilo-Saharan Language Phylum". Numeral Systems of the World's Languages.

Sources

For a list of words relating to Central Sudanic languages, see the Central Sudanic languages category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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