Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed

Nilo-Saharan 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. T ...

language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the

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 th ...

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

, Congo (DRC),

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

and

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

. They include the

pygmy In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

languages Efé and Asoa. Blench (2011) suggests that Central Sudanic influenced the development of the

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 a ...

system characteristic of the

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 ...

Urheimat

The homeland of Proto-Central Sudanic is thought to be within the

Bahr el Ghazal Bahr el-Ghazal (Arabic بحر الغزال , also transliterated ''Bahr al-Ghazal'', ''Baḩr al-Ghazāl'', ''Bahr el-Gazel'', or versions of these without the hyphen) may refer to two distinct places, both named after ephemeral or dry rivers. Chad ...

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 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 ...

, 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. Starostin (2011) notes that the poorly attested language

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 ...

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 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 accompli ...

(1992) classifies the Central Sudanic languages as follows, with Central Sudanic bifurcating into a ''Peripheral'' branch and a ''Central'' branch.Bender, Lionel M. 1992. "Central Sudanic segmental and lexical reconstruction." ''Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere'' 29: 5-61. ;Central Sudanic *''Peripheral'' ** Moru–Madi ***Moru (Miza, etc.) ***Avukaya, Logo, Keliko ***Madi (Lokai, etc.) ** Mangbutu: Mamvu; Balese ** Mangbetu: Meje, Asua, Aka, Lombi ** Kresh: Kresh; Aja ** Baadha ( ''Baledha'', ''Lendu'') *''Central'' ** Bagirmi-Sara ***Barma (Bagirmi) ***Sara-Mbay ***Sara-Ngambay, Sara Kaba ***Baka ** Yulu-Binga ** Fongoro **Shemya ( Sinyar) ** Bongoid ***Bongo ***Fer (Kara) ***Modo, Jur Beli

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:

References

Sources

* Blench, Roger. 2011. "Can Sino-Tibetan and Austroasiatic help us understand the evolution of Niger-Congo noun classes?

CALL 41, Leiden. * Blench, Roger
Central Sudanic overview
* Blench, Roger. 2018
Core and peripheral noun morphology in Central Sudanic languages
Proceedings of the 13th Nilo-Saharan Conference University of Addis Ababa, 6 May 2017 * Starostin, George
On Mimi
Journal of Language Relationship, v. 6, 2011, pp. 115–140.

External links

A map of Central Sudanic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Central Sudanic Languages Central Sudanic languages, Language families