The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family . They are spoken in parts of the Sahel . They include 196 languages spoken across northern Nigeria , southern Niger , southern Chad , and northern Cameroon . By far the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa , a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa , particularly Niger and the northern half of Nigeria. Hausa, along with Mafa and Karai Karai , are the only three Chadic languages with more than 1 million speakers.
5-463: Paul Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Roger Blench (2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic. Subsequent work by Joseph Lovestrand argues strongly that Kujarge is a valid member of East Chadic. The placing of Luri as a primary split of West Chadic
10-652: Is an American linguist active in the study of African languages . He writes on the Hausa language of Nigeria and on the Chadic language family . He wrote the Modern Hausa-English Dictionary (1977), co-authored with his wife, Roxana Ma Newman, and The Hausa Language: An Encyclopedic Reference Grammar (2000). He is the founder of the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics , a journal in
15-565: Is erroneous. Bernard Caron (2004) shows that this language is South Bauchi and part of the Polci cluster. A suggestion for including the language isolate Kujargé as an early-diverged member, which subsequently became influenced by East Chadic, has been made by Blench (2008). Chadic languages contain many Nilo-Saharan loanwords from either the Songhay or Maban branches, pointing to early contact between Chadic and Nilo-Saharan speakers as Chadic
20-721: The field of African-language studies. He has taught at Yale University , the University of Leiden , and the Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages at Bayero University in Kano , Nigeria. He is currently Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University after serving two terms as chairman of the department. Newman is a strong advocate of the theories of his mentor, Joseph Greenberg , and has published
25-611: Was migrating west. Although Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited. Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351): Sample basic vocabulary in different Chadic branches listed in order from west to east, with reconstructions of other Afroasiatic branches also given for comparison: Paul Newman (linguist) Paul Newman (born 1937)
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