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68-510: Unlike Nilo-Saharan , the Niger–Congo language phylum is accepted by mainstream linguists and Africanists. Atlantic–Congo (roughly, Niger–Congo but excluding the Mande , Kru , Siamou , Kordofanian , Dogon and Ijoid languages ) is accepted by Glottolog 4.4. Blench (2006, 2016) proposes that Proto-Niger–Congo originated about 11,000–10,000 years before present in the western part of

136-525: A Core group in which Berta was considered divergent, and coordinating Fur–Maban as a sister clade to Chari–Nile. Songhay Saharan Kunama–Ilit Kuliak Fur Maban Moru–Mangbetu Sara–Bongo Berta Surmic – Nilotic Nubian , Nara , Taman Gumuz Koman (including Shabo) Kadugli–Krongo Bender revised his model of Nilo-Saharan again in 1996, at which point he split Koman and Gumuz into completely separate branches of Core Nilo-Saharan. Christopher Ehret came up with

204-618: A Malagasy dialect called Bushi is also spoken in Mayotte . The ancestors of the Malagasy people migrated to Madagascar around 1,500 years ago from Southeast Asia, more specifically the island of Borneo. The origins of how they arrived to Madagascar remains a mystery, however the Austronesians are known for their seafaring culture. Despite the geographical isolation, Malagasy still has strong resemblance to Barito languages especially

272-419: A classification which expanded upon and revised that of Greenberg. He considered Fur and Maban to constitute a Fur–Maban branch, added Kadu to Nilo-Saharan, removed Kuliak from Eastern Sudanic, removed Gumuz from Koman (but left it as a sister node), and chose to posit Kunama as an independent branch of the family. By 1991 he had added more detail to the tree, dividing Chari–Nile into nested clades, including

340-655: A factor that can promote African unity. Language is not static in Africa any more than on other continents. In addition to the (likely modest) impact of borders, there are also cases of dialect levelling (such as in Igbo and probably many others), koinés (such as N'Ko and possibly Runyakitara ) and emergence of new dialects (such as Sheng ). In some countries, there are official efforts to develop standardized language versions. There are also many less widely spoken languages that may be considered endangered languages . Of

408-455: A language on either side of a border (especially when the official languages are different), for example, in orthographic standards. Some notable cross-border languages include Berber (which stretches across much of North Africa and some parts of West Africa), Kikongo (that stretches across northern Angola, western and coastal Democratic Republic of the Congo, and western and coastal Republic of

476-482: A novel classification of Nilo-Saharan as a preliminary part of his then-ongoing research into the macrofamily. His evidence for the classification was not fully published until much later (see Ehret 2001 below), and so it did not attain the same level of acclaim as competing proposals, namely those of Bender and Blench. By 2000 Bender had entirely abandoned the Chari–Nile and Komuz branches. He also added Kunama back to

544-425: A number of languages with at least a million speakers (most data from SIL's Ethnologue 16 (2009)). In descending order: Some other important Nilo-Saharan languages under 1 million speakers: The total for all speakers of Nilo-Saharan languages according to Ethnologue 16 is 38–39 million people. However, the data spans a range from ca. 1980 to 2005, with a weighted median at ca. 1990. Given population growth rates,

612-583: A proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, 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

680-466: A relationship between the branches of Nilo-Saharan, though he leaves open the possibility that some of them may prove to be related to each other once the necessary reconstructive work is done. According to Güldemann (2018), "the current state of research is not sufficient to prove the Nilo-Saharan hypothesis." The constituent families of Nilo-Saharan are quite diverse. One characteristic feature

748-557: A similar cultural background. Some widespread phonetic features include: Sounds that are relatively uncommon in African languages include uvular consonants , diphthongs and front rounded vowels Tonal languages are found throughout the world but are especially common in Africa - in fact, there are far more tonal than non-tonal languages in Africa. Both the Nilo-Saharan and the Khoi-San phyla are fully tonal. The large majority of

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816-919: A trisyllabic (CVCVCV) syllabic structure for Proto-Niger–Congo roots, while Konstantin Pozdniakov (2016) suggests that the main prototypical structure of Proto-Niger–Congo roots is *CVC, along with disyllabic, trisyllabic, and other variations. Noun classes can be reconstructed for Proto-Atlantic–Congo, and these are sometimes assumed to be Proto-Niger–Congo. Noun class prefixes in Proto-Atlantic–Congo include: Below are some Niger–Congo noun class markers (Good 2020:145, from Schadeberg 1989:72): Below are some Proto-Niger/Atlantic–Congo, Proto-Bantu , and Proto- Atlantic verbal extensions (Good 2020:146, from Hyman 2007:157): For example, in Swahili : Güldemann's (2018) Proto-Niger–Congo pronoun reconstructions, for

884-443: A whole, however this relationship is more likely due to a close relationship between Songhay and Mande many thousands of years ago in the early days of Nilo-Saharan, so the relationship is probably more one of ancient contact than a genetic link. The extinct Meroitic language of ancient Kush has been accepted by linguists such as Rille, Dimmendaal, and Blench as Nilo-Saharan, though others argue for an Afroasiatic affiliation. It

952-454: A wide variety of sign languages , many of which are language isolates. Around a hundred languages are widely used for interethnic communication. These include Arabic , Swahili , Amharic , Oromo , Igbo , Somali , Hausa , Manding , Fulani and Yoruba , which are spoken as a second (or non-first) language by millions of people. Although many African languages are used on the radio, in newspapers and in primary-school education, and some of

1020-725: A wider family came in 1912, when Diedrich Westermann included three of the (still independent) Central Sudanic families within Nilotic in a proposal he called Niloto-Sudanic ; this expanded Nilotic was in turn linked to Nubian, Kunama, and possibly Berta, essentially Greenberg's Macro-Sudanic ( Chari–Nile ) proposal of 1954. In 1920 G. W. Murray fleshed out the Eastern Sudanic languages when he grouped Nilotic, Nubian, Nera , Gaam , and Kunama. Carlo Conti Rossini made similar proposals in 1926, and in 1935 Westermann added Murle . In 1940 A. N. Tucker published evidence linking five of

1088-507: Is a challenging proposal to demonstrate but contend that it looks more promising the more work is done. Some of the constituent groups of Nilo-Saharan are estimated to predate the African neolithic . For example, the unity of Eastern Sudanic is estimated to date to at least the 5th millennium BC. Nilo-Saharan genetic unity would thus be much older still and date to the late Upper Paleolithic . The earliest written language associated with

1156-482: Is a list of language isolates and otherwise unclassified languages in Africa, from Vossen & Dimmendaal (2020:434): Many African countries have national sign languages, such as Algerian Sign Language , Tunisian Sign Language , Ethiopian Sign Language . Other sign languages are restricted to small areas or single villages, such as Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana . Tanzania has seven, one for each of its schools for

1224-478: Is a term of convenience covering some 30 languages spoken by around 300,000–400,000 people. There are five Khoisan families that have not been shown to be related to each other: Khoe , Tuu and Kx'a , which are found mainly in Namibia and Botswana , as well as Sandawe and Hadza of Tanzania , which are language isolates . A striking feature of Khoisan languages, and the reason they are often grouped together,

1292-405: Is a tripartite singulative–collective–plurative number system , which Blench (2010) believes is a result of a noun-classifier system in the protolanguage . The distribution of the families may reflect ancient watercourses in a green Sahara during the African humid period before the 4.2-kiloyear event , when the desert was more habitable than it is today. Within the Nilo-Saharan languages are

1360-1113: Is currently compiling a Niger–Congo etymological dictionary. Some examples from Blench (2016): Hans Günther Mukarovsky  [ de ] 's reconstruction of Proto-Western Nigritic (roughly equivalent to Proto- Atlantic–Congo ) was published in 2 volumes in 1976 and 1977. Blench (2009) lists various Niger–Congo quasi-reconstructions for plants with important economic uses (note that not all of them necessarily reconstruct to Proto-Niger–Congo). These roots are generally widespread areal forms ( Wanderworts ), with some of them also found in Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages. A few forms are also added from some of Blench's other works (2006, 2012, 2016). Other plant names with widespread areal distributions in West Africa: Below are some quasi-reconstructions of Niger–Congo areal forms for animal names given by Blench (2007), with some reconstructions also based on Blench (2006). Nilo-Saharan languages The Nilo-Saharan languages are

1428-509: Is generally accepted by linguists, though a few question the inclusion of Mande and Dogon , and there is no conclusive evidence for the inclusion of Ubangian . Several languages spoken in Africa belong to language families concentrated or originating outside the African continent. Malagasy belongs to the Austronesian languages and is the westernmost branch of the family. It is the national and co-official language of Madagascar , and

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1496-476: Is important in Central Africa. Important South African languages are Sotho , Tswana , Pedi , Venda , Tsonga , Swazi , Southern Ndebele , Zulu , Xhosa and Afrikaans . French, English, and Portuguese are important languages in Africa due to colonialism. About 320 million, 240 million and 35 million Africans, respectively, speak them as either native or secondary languages. Portuguese has become

1564-405: Is perhaps the most likely to be an isolate. Less-well investigated languages include Irimba , Luo , Mawa , Rer Bare (possibly Bantu languages), Bete (evidently Jukunoid), Bung (unclear), Kujarge (evidently Chadic), Lufu (Jukunoid), Meroitic (possibly Afroasiatic), Oropom (possibly spurious) and Weyto (evidently Cushitic). Several of these are extinct, and adequate comparative data

1632-688: Is poorly attested. There is little doubt that the constituent families of Nilo-Saharan—of which only Eastern Sudanic and Central Sudanic show much internal diversity—are valid groups. However, there have been several conflicting classifications in grouping them together. Each of the proposed higher-order groups has been rejected by other researchers: Greenberg's Chari–Nile by Bender and Blench, and Bender's Core Nilo-Saharan by Dimmendaal and Blench. What remains are eight (Dimmendaal) to twelve (Bender) constituent families of no consensus arrangement. Joseph Greenberg , in The Languages of Africa , set up

1700-908: Is the Arab expansion in the 7th century, which led to the extension of Arabic from its homeland in Asia, into much of North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Trade languages are another age-old phenomenon in the African linguistic landscape. Cultural and linguistic innovations spread along trade routes and languages of peoples dominant in trade developed into languages of wider communication ( lingua franca ). Of particular importance in this respect are Berber (North and West Africa), Jula (western West Africa), Fulfulde (West Africa), Hausa (West Africa), Lingala (Congo), Swahili (Southeast Africa), Somali (Horn of Africa) and Arabic (North Africa and Horn of Africa). After gaining independence, many African countries, in

1768-501: Is their use of click consonants . Some neighbouring Bantu languages (notably Xhosa and Zulu ) have clicks as well, but these were adopted from Khoisan languages. The Khoisan languages are also tonal . Due partly to its multilingualism and its colonial past, a substantial proportion of the world's creole languages are to be found in Africa. Some are based on Indo-European languages (e.g. Krio from English in Sierra Leone and

1836-432: Is thus unlikely to be forthcoming. Hombert & Philippson (2009) list a number of African languages that have been classified as language isolates at one point or another. Many of these are simply unclassified, but Hombert & Philippson believe Africa has about twenty language families, including isolates. Beside the possibilities listed above, there are: Roger Blench notes a couple additional possibilities: Below

1904-487: Is uncertain. The family's most extensive branch, the Semitic languages (including Arabic , Amharic and Hebrew among others), is the only branch of Afroasiatic that is spoken outside Africa. Some of the most widely spoken Afroasiatic languages include Arabic (a Semitic language, and a recent arrival from West Asia), Somali (Cushitic), Berber (Berber), Hausa (Chadic), Amharic (Semitic) and Oromo (Cushitic). Of

1972-548: Is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect ) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SIL Ethnologue ), one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families , among which the largest are: There are several other small families and language isolates , as well as creoles and languages that have yet to be classified . In addition, Africa has

2040-574: The Koman , Gumuz and Kadu branches. Some of the better known Nilo-Saharan languages are Kanuri , Fur , Songhay , Nobiin and the widespread Nilotic family , which includes the Luo , Dinka and Maasai . Most Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal , as are Niger-Congo languages. The Niger–Congo languages constitute the largest language family spoken in West Africa and perhaps the world in terms of

2108-464: The Kordofanian languages of south-central Sudan , was proposed in the 1950s by Joseph Greenberg . Today, linguists often use "Niger–Congo" to refer to this entire family, including Kordofanian as a subfamily. One reason for this is that it is not clear whether Kordofanian was the first branch to diverge from rest of Niger–Congo. Mande has been claimed to be equally or more divergent. Niger–Congo

Proto-Niger–Congo language - Misplaced Pages Continue

2176-643: The Ma'anyan language of southern Borneo. With more than 20 million speakers, Malagasy is one of the most widely spoken of the Austronesian languages. Afrikaans is Indo-European , as is most of the vocabulary of most African creole languages . Afrikaans evolved from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland ( Hollandic dialect ) spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa , where it gradually began to develop distinguishing characteristics in

2244-692: The Tanzanian Sign languages used in Tanzania . Throughout the long multilingual history of the African continent, African languages have been subject to phenomena like language contact, language expansion, language shift and language death. A case in point is the Bantu expansion , in which Bantu-speaking peoples expanded over most of Sub-Equatorial Africa , intermingling with Khoi-San speaking peoples from much of Southeast Africa and Southern Africa and other peoples from Central Africa . Another example

2312-542: The " Green Sahara " of Africa (roughly the Sahel and southern Sahara ), and that its dispersal can be correlated with the spread of the bow and arrow by migrating hunter-gatherers . Larry Hyman (2016) reconstructs two contrastive level tones for Proto-Niger–Congo, which are: Proto-Niger–Congo is traditionally assumed to have had a disyllabic root structure similar to that of Proto-Bantu , namely (C)V-CVCV ( Williamson 2000, etc.). However, Roger Blench (2016) proposes

2380-504: The "Satellite–Core" group and simplified the subdivisions therein. He retracted the inclusion of Shabo , stating that it could not yet be adequately classified but might prove to be Nilo-Saharan once sufficient research has been done. This tentative and somewhat conservative classification held as a sort of standard for the next decade. Songhay Saharan African languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa

2448-489: The 1 billion Africans (in 2009), about 17 percent speak an Arabic dialect . About 10 percent speak Swahili , the lingua franca of Southeast Africa; about 5 percent speak a Berber dialect; and about 5 percent speak Hausa , which serves as a lingua franca in much of the Sahel. Other large West African languages are Yoruba , Igbo , Akan and Fula . Major Horn of Africa languages are Somali , Amharic and Oromo . Lingala

2516-701: The Congo), Somali (stretches across most of the Horn of Africa), Swahili (spoken in the African Great Lakes region), Fula (in the Sahel and West Africa) and Luo (in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan). Some prominent Africans such as former Malian president and former Chairman of the African Commission , Alpha Oumar Konaré , have referred to cross-border languages as

2584-985: The Deaf, all of which are discouraged. Not much is known, since little has been published on these languages Sign language systems extant in Africa include the Paget Gorman Sign System used in Namibia and Angola , the Sudanese Sign languages used in Sudan and South Sudan , the Arab Sign languages used across the Arab Mideast, the Francosign languages used in Francophone Africa and other areas such as Ghana and Tunisia , and

2652-770: The Khartoum Mesolithic/Neolithic cultures. Niger-Congo languages are correlated with the west and central African hoe-based farming traditions and the Khoisan languages are matched with the south and southeastern Wilton culture . Afroasiatic languages are spoken throughout North Africa , the Horn of Africa , Western Asia and parts of the Sahel . There are approximately 375 Afroasiatic languages spoken by over 400 million people. The main subfamilies of Afroasiatic are Berber , Chadic , Cushitic , Omotic , Egyptian and Semitic . The Afroasiatic Urheimat

2720-553: The Niger–Congo languages are also tonal. Tonal languages are also found in the Omotic, Chadic and South & East Cushitic branches of Afroasiatic. The most common type of tonal system opposes two tone levels, High (H) and Low (L). Contour tones do occur, and can often be analysed as two or more tones in succession on a single syllable. Tone melodies play an important role, meaning that it is often possible to state significant generalizations by separating tone sequences ("melodies") from

2788-585: The Nilo-Saharan family is Old Nubian , one of the oldest written African languages, attested in writing from the 8th to the 15th century AD. This larger classification system is not accepted by all linguists, however. Glottolog (2013), for example, a publication of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, does not recognise the unity of the Nilo-Saharan family or even of the Eastern Sudanic branch; Georgiy Starostin (2016) likewise does not accept

Proto-Niger–Congo language - Misplaced Pages Continue

2856-606: The branches must have undergone major restructuring since diverging from their common ancestor. This hypothetical family would reach an expanse that stretches from the Nile Valley to northern Tanzania and into Nigeria and DR Congo , with the Songhay languages along the middle reaches of the Niger River as a geographic outlier. The inclusion of the Songhay languages is questionable, and doubts have been raised over

2924-607: The centre; and from Egypt to Tanzania in the east. As indicated by its hyphenated name, Nilo-Saharan is a family of the African interior, including the greater Nile Basin and the Central Sahara Desert. Eight of its proposed constituent divisions (excluding Kunama , Kuliak , and Songhay ) are found in the modern countries of Sudan and South Sudan , through which the Nile River flows. In his book The Languages of Africa (1963), Joseph Greenberg named

2992-562: The continent, such as Old Persian and Greek in Egypt, Latin and Vandalic in North Africa and Modern Persian in the Horn of Africa . The three small Khoisan families of southern Africa have not been shown to be closely related to any other major language family. In addition, there are various other families that have not been demonstrated to belong to one of these families. The classifications below follow Glottolog . Khoisan

3060-538: The continent: Afroasiatic , or Niger–Congo . Another hundred belong to smaller families such as Ubangian , Nilotic , Saharan , and the various families previously grouped under the umbrella term Khoisan . In addition, the languages of Africa include several unclassified languages and sign languages . The earliest Afroasiatic languages are associated with the Capsian culture , the Saharan languages are linked with

3128-768: The course of the 18th century, including the loss of verbal conjugation (save for 5 modal verbs), as well as grammatical case and gender. Most Afrikaans speakers live in South Africa . In Namibia it is the lingua franca . Overall 15 to 20 million people are estimated to speak Afrikaans. Since the colonial era, Indo-European languages such as Afrikaans , English , French , Italian , Portuguese and Spanish have held official status in many countries, and are widely spoken, generally as lingua francas . ( See African French and African Portuguese .) Additionally, languages like French, and Portuguese have become native languages in various countries. French has become native in

3196-404: The current name Nilo-Saharan for the resulting family. Lionel Bender noted that Chari–Nile was an artifact of the order of European contact with members of the family and did not reflect an exclusive relationship between these languages, and the group has been abandoned, with its constituents becoming primary branches of Nilo-Saharan—or, equivalently, Chari–Nile and Nilo-Saharan have merged, with

3264-578: The distribution of Nilo-Saharan reflects the waterways of the wet Sahara 12,000 years ago, and that the protolanguage had noun classifiers , which today are reflected in a diverse range of prefixes, suffixes, and number marking. Dimmendaal (2008) notes that Greenberg (1963) based his conclusion on strong evidence and that the proposal as a whole has become more convincing in the decades since. Mikkola (1999) reviewed Greenberg's evidence and found it convincing. Roger Blench notes morphological similarities in all putative branches, which leads him to believe that

3332-551: The family is likely to be valid. Koman and Gumuz are poorly known and have been difficult to evaluate until recently. Songhay is markedly divergent, in part due to massive influence from the Mande languages . Also problematic are the Kuliak languages , which are spoken by hunter-gatherers and appear to retain a non-Nilo-Saharan core; Blench believes they might have been similar to Hadza or Dahalo and shifted incompletely to Nilo-Saharan. Anbessa Tefera and Peter Unseth consider

3400-458: The family with the following branches. The Chari–Nile core are the connections that had been suggested by previous researchers. Koman (including Gumuz) Saharan Songhay Fur Maban Central Sudanic Kunama Berta Eastern Sudanic (including Kuliak , Nubian and Nilotic ) Gumuz was not recognized as distinct from neighbouring Koman; it was separated out (forming "Komuz") by Bender (1989). Lionel Bender came up with

3468-572: The figure in 2010 might be half again higher, or about 60 million. The Saharan family (which includes Kanuri , Kanembu , the Tebu languages , and Zaghawa ) was recognized by Heinrich Barth in 1853, the Nilotic languages by Karl Richard Lepsius in 1880, the various constituent branches of Central Sudanic (but not the connection between them) by Friedrich Müller in 1889, and the Maban family by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes in 1907. The first inklings of

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3536-452: The first and second person pronouns (singular and plural), are given below. Babaev (2013) is a detailed survey of pronouns in Niger–Congo languages, along with detailed reconstructions. Konstantin Pozdniakov (2018) has published a detailed reconstruction of Proto-Niger–Congo numerals , as well as comprehensive reconstructions for the lower-order branches of the Niger–Congo phylum. Pozdniakov (2018: 293) and Güldemann (2018: 147) reconstruct

3604-407: The following numerals for Proto-Niger–Congo. The numerals 6-9 are formed by combining lower numerals, while ‘20’ is derived from ‘person’. There is currently no comprehensive, systematic reconstruction for Proto-Niger–Congo lexical roots. Nevertheless, quasi-reconstructions (preliminary, tentative reconstructions, which are marked using the number sign #) have been attempted by Roger Blench , who

3672-404: The fusing of subject markers and TAM/polarity auxiliaries into what are known as tense pronouns are more common in auxiliary verb constructions in African languages than in most other parts of the world. Quite often, only one term is used for both animal and meat; the word nama or nyama for animal/meat is particularly widespread in otherwise widely divergent African languages. The following

3740-516: The group and argued it was a genetic family. It contained all the languages that were not included in the Niger–Congo , Afroasiatic or Khoisan families. Although some linguists have referred to the phylum as "Greenberg's wastebasket ", into which he placed all the otherwise unaffiliated non- click languages of Africa, other specialists in the field have accepted it as a working hypothesis since Greenberg's classification. Linguists accept that it

3808-421: The larger ones are considered national languages , only a few are official at the national level. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most official languages at the national level tend to be colonial languages such as French, Portuguese, or English. The African Union declared 2006 the "Year of African Languages". Most languages natively spoken in Africa belong to one of the two large language families that dominate

3876-542: The main language of the Central African Republic ); while in Cameroon a creole based on French, English and local African languages known as Camfranglais has started to become popular. A fair number of unclassified languages are reported in Africa. Many remain unclassified simply for lack of data; among the better-investigated ones that continue to resist easy classification are: Of these, Jalaa

3944-494: The name Nilo-Saharan retained. When it was realized that the Kadu languages were not Niger–Congo, they were commonly assumed to therefore be Nilo-Saharan, but this remains somewhat controversial. Progress has been made since Greenberg established the plausibility of the family. Koman and Gumuz remain poorly attested and are difficult to work with, while arguments continue over the inclusion of Songhai. Blench (2010) believes that

4012-433: The national language of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, and Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique. Some linguistic features are particularly common among languages spoken in Africa, whereas others are less common. Such shared traits probably are not due to a common origin of all African languages. Instead, some may be due to language contact (resulting in borrowing) and specific idioms and phrases may be due to

4080-464: The number of languages. One of its salient features is an elaborate noun class system with grammatical concord . A large majority of languages of this family are tonal such as Yoruba and Igbo , Akan and Ewe language . A major branch of Niger–Congo languages is the Bantu phylum, which has a wider speech area than the rest of the family (see Niger–Congo B (Bantu) in the map above). The Niger–Kordofanian language family, joining Niger–Congo with

4148-415: The poorly attested Shabo language to be Nilo-Saharan, though unclassified within the family due to lack of data; Dimmendaal and Blench, based on a more complete description, consider it to be a language isolate on current evidence. Proposals have sometimes been made to add Mande (usually included in Niger–Congo ), largely due to its many noteworthy similarities with Songhay rather than with Nilo-Saharan as

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4216-664: The search for national unity, selected one language, generally the former Indo-European colonial language, to be used in government and education. However, in recent years, African countries have become increasingly supportive of maintaining linguistic diversity. Language policies that are being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. This presents a methodological complication when collecting data in Africa and limited literature exists. An analysis of Afrobarometer public opinion survey data of 36 countries suggested that survey interviewers and respondents could engage in various linguistic behaviors, such as code-switching during

4284-538: The segments that bear them. Tonal sandhi processes like tone spread, tone shift, downstep and downdrift are common in African languages. Widespread syntactical structures include the common use of adjectival verbs and the expression of comparison by means of a verb 'to surpass'. The Niger–Congo languages have large numbers of genders ( noun classes ) which cause agreement in verbs and other words. Case , tense and other categories may be distinguished only by tone. Auxiliary verbs are also widespread among African languages;

4352-486: The six branches of Central Sudanic alongside his more explicit proposal for East Sudanic. In 1950 Greenberg retained Eastern Sudanic and Central Sudanic as separate families, but accepted Westermann's conclusions of four decades earlier in 1954 when he linked them together as Macro-Sudanic (later Chari–Nile , from the Chari and Nile Watersheds). Greenberg's later contribution came in 1963, when he tied Chari–Nile to Songhai, Saharan, Maban, Fur, and Koman-Gumuz and coined

4420-496: The survey. Moreover, some African countries have been considering removing their official former Indo-European colonial languages, like Mali and Burkina Faso which removed French as an official language in 2024. The colonial borders established by European powers following the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 divided a great many ethnic groups and African language speaking communities. This can cause divergence of

4488-682: The urban areas of the DRC, and Gabon. German was once used in Germany's colonies there from the late 1800s until World War I, when Britain and France took over and revoked German's official status. Despite this, German is still spoken in Namibia , mostly among the white population . Although it lost its official status in the 1990s, it has been redesignated as a national language. Indian languages such as Gujarati are spoken by South Asian expatriates exclusively. In earlier historical times, other Indo-European languages could be found in various parts of

4556-743: The very similar Pidgin in Nigeria , Ghana and parts of Cameroon ; Cape Verdean Creole in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau Creole in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal , all from Portuguese; Seychellois Creole in the Seychelles and Mauritian Creole in Mauritius , both from French); some are based on Arabic (e.g. Juba Arabic in the southern Sudan , or Nubi in parts of Uganda and Kenya ); some are based on local languages (e.g. Sango ,

4624-540: The world's surviving language families, Afroasiatic has the longest written history, as both the Akkadian language of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egyptian are members. Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed grouping of some one hundred diverse languages. Genealogical linkage between these languages has failed to be conclusively demonstrated, and support for the proposal is sparse among linguists. The languages share some unusual morphology , but if they are related, most of

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