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Central Sudanic Language
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, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and Cameroon. They include the pygmy languages Efé and Asoa. Blench (2011) suggests that Central Sudanic influenced the development of the noun-class system characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo languages. Urheimat The homeland of Proto-Central Sudanic is thought to be within the Bahr el Ghazal. Classification Half a dozen groups of Central Sudanic languages are generally accepted as valid. They are customarily divided into East and West branches. Starostin (2016) Starostin (2016)George Starostin (2016) ''The Nilo-Saharan hypothesis tested through lexicostatistics: current state of affairs'' finds support for Eastern Central Sudanic (Lendu, Mangbetu, Lugbara, etc., concentrated in the northeast corner of DR Congo) but not for the weste ...
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Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about . , it had an estimated population of around million. , the Central African Republic is the scene of a civil war, ongoing since 2012. Most of the Central African Republic consists of Sudano-Guinean savannas, but the country also includes a Sahelo- Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two-thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin (which flows into the Congo), while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad. What is today the Central African Republic has been inhabited for millennia; however, the country's current borders were established by ...
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Lau Laka Language
Laka of Lau is a 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. Distribution Laka speakers live in Laka ward of Lau LGA (Hausa: ''Angawan Lakawa''; formerly ''Garin Lakawa'' ‘Laka town’), Taraba State, eastern Nigeria.Idiatov, Dmitry, Mark Van de Velde, Tope Olagunju and Bitrus Andrew. 2017. Results of the first AdaGram survey in Adamawa and Taraba States, Nigeria'. 47th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) (Leiden, Netherlands). They live alongside the Win Lau (or ''Lau proper''; formerly ''Lau Habe''), who are Jukunoid speakers. Lexical comparison The following table compares Laka (Lau) and Laka (Chad), both of which are Central Sudanic languages, with Lau proper, a Jukunoid The Jukunoid languages are a branch of the ...
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Lionel Bender
Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist. Life Bender was born August 18, 1934, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He travelled throughout the world, particularly in Northeast Africa, and was an accomplished chess player. Dr. Bender died of complications from a stroke and brain hemorrhage on February 19, 2008 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Career Bender wrote and co-wrote several books, publications and essays on the languages of Africa, particularly those spoken in Ethiopia and Sudan, and was a major contributor to Ethiopian Studies. He did extensive work on the Afro-Asiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan languages spoken locally. Together with J. Donald Bowen, Robert L. Cooper, and Charles A. Ferguson, Bender carried out the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in East Africa, funded by the Ford Foundation in 1968-1970. He later conducted other research sponsored by the ...
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Mimi Of Decorse
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 Maurice 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 (the similarities are with that language specifically, not with the entire Maban family), and provisionally regards it as a language isolate, though it is suggestive of Central Sudanic.Starostin, GeorgeOn Mimi Journal of Language Relationship, v. 6, 2011, pp. 115-140. Basic vocabulary The more stable of Mimi-D and Mimi-N's attested vocabulary is as follows: See also *Mimi of Nachtigal Mimi of Nachtigal, or Mimi-N, is a language of Chad that is attested only in a word list labelled " M ...
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Mangbetu Languages
The Mangbetu–Asoa or Mangbetu languages of the Central Sudanic language family are a cluster of closely related languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The languages are Mangbetu, spoken by perhaps a million people, and the smaller Lombi and Asoa. Blench (2000) considers Lombi to be part of the Mangbetu dialect continuum. Asoa is spoken by Pygmies. Proto-Mangbetu has been reconstructed by Demolin (1992).Demolin, Didier. 1992. ''Le Mangbetu: etude phonétique et phonologique'', 2 vols. Brussels: Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Université libre de Bruxelles dissertation. Comparative vocabulary Mangbetu-Asua languages comparative lexicon:Demolin, Didier. 2021. The languages of the Ituri forest Pygmies: contact and historical perspectives'Diedrich Westermann-Workshop(West-central African linguistic history between Macro-Sudan Belt and Niger-Congo: commemorating Diedrich Westermann’s legacy and the 100th anniversary of the Berlin professorship for African l ...
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Kresh Language
Kresh, also known ambiguously as Gbaya, is a Central Sudanic language of South Sudan. Naomi Baki, a native Kresh speaker who became a French citizen in 2015, has released an autobiography in 2013 in which she describes her Kresh Gbaya environment in Raga County.Naomi Baki,'Je suis encore vivante''(Paris, Le Cerf, 2013). The title's meaning in English is "Still Alive". Dialects The Kresh varieties have varying mutual intelligibility, with northernmost Dongo being most distinct and southernmost Woro being next, though mutually intelligible with Kresh proper. 'Kresh' is what the people are called by their neighbors; they call themselves ''Gbaya'', an ambiguous name in English, shared with many of the unrelated Gbaya languages. * Ndogo (Gbaya) * Naka (Boro, Kpara) * Kresh-Hofra (Gbaya-Ngbongbo) * Woro (Orlo) Ndogo is the prestige dialect, and Naka the most populous. Locations A 2013 survey reported that ethnic Kresh reside in Dar Seid Bandas and Kata Bomas, Ringi Payam, Ra ...
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Lugbara Language
Lugbara, or Lugbarati, is the language of the Lugbara people. It is spoken in the West Nile sub-region, West Nile region in northwestern Uganda, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Orientale Province. Classification and dialects The Aringa language, also known as Low Lugbara, is closely related, and sometimes considered a dialect of Lugbara. If fact, among the Lugbara of Uganda, it is one of the five clans (Ayivu clan, Vurra clan, Terego clan, Maracha clan, and Aringa clan). Some scholars classify the Lugbara language itself as a dialect of the Madi language (Sudan and Uganda), Ma'di language, though this is not generally accepted. An SIL survey report concluded that the Okollo, Ogoko, and Rigbo dialects, called "Southern Ma'di", should be classified as dialects of Lugbara. Phonology Vowels * /ɛ, ɔ/ can also be heard as [e, o] as a result of vowel harmony. * /a/ can have an allophone of [ʌ] when after sounds /k, ɡ/. Consonants * /l/ can be heard as ...
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Mangbetu Language
Mangbetu, or ''Nemangbetu,'' is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. It is spoken by the Mangbetu people of northeastern Congo. It, or its speakers, are also known as ''Amangbetu, Kingbetu, Mambetto.'' The most populous dialect, and the one most widely understood, is called Medje. Others are Aberu (Nabulu), Makere, Malele, Popoi (Mapopoi). The most divergent is Lombi; ''Ethnologue'' treats it as a distinct language. About half of the population speaks Bangala, a trade language similar to Lingala, and in southern areas some speak Swahili. The Mangbetu live in association with the Asua Pygmies, and their languages are closely related. Dialects Mangbetu dialects and locations as listed by Demolin (1992): *''Mangbetu proper'' is spoken north of Isiro, in the subregion of Haut-Uele and north of the Bomokandi River. It is found in Nangazizi and Rungu in the collectivité of Azanga, Ganga in the collectivité of Okondo, Tapili in the collectivité of Mangb ...
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Lendu Language
The Lendu language is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Balendru, an ethno-linguistic agriculturalist group residing in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the area west and northwest of Lake Albert, specifically the Ituri Region of Orientale Province. It is one of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages. There are three-quarters of a million Lendu speakers in the DRC. A conflict between the Lendu was the basis of the Ituri conflict. Besides the Balendru, Lendu is spoken as a native language by a portion of the Hema, Alur, and Okebu. Names ''Ethnologue'' gives ''Bbadha'' as an alternate name of Lendu, but Blench (2000) lists ''Badha'' as a distinct language. A draft listing of Nilo-Saharan languagesavailable from his websiteand dated 2012, lists ''Lendu/Badha''. Phonology Demolin (1995) posits that Lendu has voiceless implosives, (). However, Goyvaerts (1988) had described these as creaky-voiced implosives , as in Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Ha ...
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Bahr El Ghazal (region Of South Sudan)
The Bahr el Ghazal is a region of northwestern South Sudan. Its name came from the river Bahr el Ghazal River, Bahr el Ghazal. The name translates as "sea of gazelles" from Arabic. Geography Bahr el Ghazal borders the Central African Republic to the west. It is an area of swamps and ironstone plateaus inhabited mainly by the Dinka people, who make their living through subsistence farming and cattle herding plus Luwo and Fartit tribes. Administrative divisions Bahr el Ghazal consists of the following States of South Sudan, states: * Lakes (state), Lakes * Northern Bahr el Ghazal * Warrap (state), Warrap * Western Bahr el Ghazal * ''Abyei Area'' Between October 2015 and January 2020, the region consisted of the following states: * Eastern Lakes State * Gok State * Western Lakes State * Aweil East State * Aweil State * Tonj State * Twic State * Lol State * Wau State * Gogrial State * ''Abyei Area'' History It was historically subject to raids by the Fur (people), Fur invader ...
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Atlantic–Congo Languages
The Atlantic–Congo languages are the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian), and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Mukarovsky's West-Nigritic corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox, the languages which appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top.Roger BlenchNiger-Congo: an alternative view/ref> The Atlantic branch is defined in the narrow sense, while the former Atlantic branches Mel and the isolates Sua, Gola and Limba, are split out as primary branches; they are mentioned next to each other because there is no published evidence to move them; Volta–Congo is intact apart from Senufo and Kru. In addition, Güldemann (2018) lists Nalu and Rio Nunez as unclassi ...
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Noun-class
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", but others consider these different concepts. Noun classes should not be confused with noun classifiers. Notion There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: * according to similarities in their meaning (semantic criterion); * by grouping them with other nouns that have similar form (morphology); * through an arbitrary convention. Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used, though one is more prevalent. Noun classes form a system of grammatical agreement. A noun in a given class may require: * agreement affixes on adjectives, pronouns, numerals, etc. in the same noun phrase, * agreement affixes on the ver ...
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