|
Eastern Sudanic Languages
In most classifications, the Eastern Sudanic languages are a group of nine families of languages that may constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan languages, Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania. Old Nubian language, Nubian (and possibly Meroitic language, Meroitic) gives Eastern Sudanic some of the earliest written attestations of African languages. However, the largest branch by far is Nilotic languages, Nilotic, spread by extensive and comparatively recent conquests throughout East Africa. Before the spread of Nilotic, Eastern Sudanic was centered in present-day Sudan. The name "East Sudanic" refers to the eastern part of the Sudan (region), region of Sudan where the country of Sudan is located, and contrasts with Central Sudanic languages, Central Sudanic and Western Sudanic (modern Mande languages, Mande, in the Niger–Congo languages, Niger–Congo family). Lionel Bender (linguist), Lionel Bender (1980) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northern coast of Egypt, the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to Egypt–Israel barrier, the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to Egypt–Sudan border, the south, and Libya to Egypt–Libya border, the west; the Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital, list of cities and towns in Egypt, largest city, and leading cultural center, while Alexandria is the second-largest city and an important hub of industry and tourism. With over 109 million inhabitants, Egypt is the List of African countries by population, third-most populous country in Africa and List of countries and dependencies by population, 15th-most populated in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surmic Languages
The Surmic languages are a branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family. Today, the various peoples who speak Surmic languages make their living in a variety of ways, including nomadic herders, settled farmers, and slash and burn farmers. They live in a variety of terrain, from the lowlands of South Sudan and the banks of the Omo River to mountains over 2,300 meters. Languages According to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Surmic languages are classified as follows: * Surmic ** Majang ** South Surmic *** Southeast Surmic **** Kwegu **** Pastoral Surmic ***** Me'en ***** Tirma–Chai–Mursi ****** Mursi ****** Tirma–Chai *** Southwest Surmic **** Baale–Olam ***** Kacipo–Balesi ***** Ngaalam **** Didinga–Murle ***** Didinga–Longarim ****** Didinga ****** Narim ***** Murle ***** Tennet The Surmic languages are found in southwest Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niger–Congo Languages
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger–Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area.Irene Thompson"Niger-Congo Language Family" "aboutworldlanguages", March 2015 Austronesian has almost as many member languages, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by '' Ethnologue'' is 1,540. The proposed family would be the third-largest in the world by number of native speakers, with around 600 million people as of 2025. Within Niger–Congo, the Bantu languages alone account for 350 million people (2015), or half ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mande Languages
The Mande languages are a family of languages spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé peoples. They include Maninka (Malinke), Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Kpelle, Jula (Dioula), Bozo, Mende, Susu, and Vai. There are around 60 to 75 languages spoken by 30 to 40 million people, chiefly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) and also in southern Mauritania, northern Ghana, northwestern Nigeria and northern Benin. The Mande languages show a few lexical similarities with the Atlantic–Congo language family, so together they have been proposed as parts of a larger Niger–Congo language family since the 1950s. However, the Mande languages lack the noun-class morphology that is the primary identifying feature of the Atlantic–Congo languages. Accordingly, linguists increasingly treat Mande and Atlantic–Congo as independent language families. History Various opinions exis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Sudanic Languages
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 Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of 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. 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: Sinyar–Formona is sparsely documented and its plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sudan (region)
Sudan is the geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic ' () and ' (), both meaning "the land of the Africans, Blacks", referring to West Africa and northern Central Africa. History According to some modern historians, of all the regions of Africa, western Sudan "is the one that has seen the longest development of agriculture, of markets and long-distance trade, and of complex political systems." It is also the first region "south of the Sahara where African Islam took root and flowered." Middle Ages Its medieval history is marked by the Trans-Saharan trade, caravan trade. The sultanates of eastern Sudan were Sultanate of Darfur, Darfur, Sultanate of Bagirmi, Bagirmi, Sultanate of Sennar, Sennar and Wadai Sultanate, Wadai. In central Sudan, Kanem–Bornu Empire and the Hausa Kingdoms. To the west were Wagadou, Mandé peoples, Manden, Songhai Empire, Songhay and the Mossi peo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Africa
East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the region is recognized in the United Nations Statistics Division United Nations geoscheme for Africa, scheme as encompassing 18 sovereign states and 4 territories. It includes the Horn of Africa to the North and Southeastern Africa to the south. Definitions In a narrow sense, particularly in English-speaking contexts, East Africa refers to the area comprising Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, largely due to their shared history under the Omani Empire and as parts of the British East Africa Protectorate and German East Africa. Further extending East Africa's definition, the Horn of Africa—comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia—stands out as a distinct geopolitical entity within East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Nubian Language
Old Nubian (also called Middle Nubian or Old Nobiin) is an extinct Nubian language, attested in writing from the 8th to the 15th century AD. It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin and closely related to Dongolawi and Kenzi. It was used throughout the kingdom of Makuria, including the eparchy of Nobatia. The language is preserved in more than a hundred pages of documents and inscriptions, both of a religious nature (homilies, prayers, hagiographies, psalms, lectionaries), and related to the state and private life (legal documents, letters), written using adaptation of the Coptic alphabet. History Old Nubian, according to historical linguists, was the spoken language of the oldest inhabitants of the Nile valley. Adams, Berhens, Griffith and Bechhause-Gerst agree that Nile Nubian has its origins in the Nile valley. Old Nubian is one of the oldest written African languages and appears to have been adopted from the 10th–11th century as the main language for the civil and rel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nilo-Saharan Languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River, 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 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 languages, Kunama, Kuliak, and Songhai languages, 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 the group and argued it was a genetic (linguistics), genetic fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berta Languages
The Berta languages, or Funj, traditionally considered dialects of a single language, are Gebeto (Berta proper), Fadashi, and Undu. They are either a small family (or language isolate) of their own, or a primary branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Berta has the typical word order subject–verb–object. It is a tonal language. It has significantly influenced some of the Eastern Jebel languages. The Arabic name "Beni-Shangul" (as in the Ethiopian province of Benishangul-Gumuz) derives from a Berta expression (with ''bele'' "rock/stone" misanalyzed as Arabic ''beni'' "sons"). Varieties Bremer (2016) surveys the following 6 varieties of Berta, providing word lists for them as well. Geographical information is from Bremer (2016:2–3). With the exception of Metehara, all surveyed Berta varieties are spoken in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia. There is very little data for Berta varieties spoken in Sudan. * Maiyu, the most prestigious and also the most innovat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuliak
The Kuliak languages, also called the Rub languages,Ehret, Christopher (2001) ''A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan'' (SUGIA, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika: Beihefte 12), Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, . or Nyangiyan languages are a group of languages spoken by small relict communities in the mountainous Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. Nyang'i and Soo are moribund, with a handful of elderly speakers. However, Ik is vigorous and growing. Word order in Kuliak languages is verb-initial.Beer, Sam, Amber McKinney, Lokiru Kosma 2009. ''The So Language: A Grammar Sketch''. m.s. Names The Kuliak languages are also called the Rub languages by Ehret (1981), since Ehret reconstructed "Rub" to mean 'person' in Proto-Kuliak. He suggests that "Kuliak" may actually be a derogatory term used by neighboring Nilotic-speaking peoples to disparage Kuliak speakers as "poor," hence his preference for using Rub instead. However, Kuliak continues to be the most w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
