The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the

Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

. They include 196 languages spoken across northern

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, ...

, southern

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

, southern

Chad Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...

, and northern

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. By far the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

of much of inland Eastern

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

, particularly Niger and the northern half of Nigeria. Hausa is the only Chadic language with more than 1 million speakers.

Composition

Paul Newman Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and activist. He was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Paul Newman, numerous awards ...

(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 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 A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

Kujargé as an early-diverged member, which subsequently became influenced by East Chadic, has been made by Blench (2008). * Chadic ** West Chadic *** the Hausa,

Ron Ron is a shortening of the name Ronald. Ron or RON may also refer to: Arts and media * Big Ron (''EastEnders''), a TV character * Ron (''King of Fighters''), a video game character *Ron Douglas, the protagonist in '' Lucky Stiff'' played by Joe ...

, Bole, and Angas languages *** the Bade, Warji, and Zaar languages ** Biu–Mandara (Central Chadic) *** the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups *** the Buduma and Musgu languages *** Gidar ** East Chadic *** the Tumak, Nancere, and Kera languages *** the Dangaléat, Mukulu, and Sokoro languages **

Masa ''Masa'' or ''masa de maíz'' (; ) is a dough made from ground nixtamalized maize. It is used for making corn tortillas, '' gorditas'', '' tamales'', '' pupusas'', and many other Latin American dishes. It is dried and powdered into a flour f ...

Loanwords

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 was migrating west. Although

Adamawa languages The Adamawa languages are a putative family of 80–90 languages scattered across the Adamawa Plateau in Central Africa, in northern Cameroon, north-western Central African Republic, southern Chad, and eastern Nigeria, spoken altogether by on ...

are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited.Blench, Roger. 2012. ''Linguistic evidence for the chronological stratification of populations South of Lake Chad''. Presentation for Mega-Tchad Colloquium in Naples, September 13–15, 2012.

Pronouns

Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351):Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. ''The Oxford Handbook of African Languages''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary in different Chadic branches listed in order from west to east, with reconstructions of other Afroasiatic branches also given for comparison:

Bibliography

* Caron, Bernard 2004. Le Luri: quelques notes sur une langue tchadique du Nigeria. In: Pascal Boyeldieu & Pierre Nougayrol (eds.), Langues et Cultures: Terrains d’Afrique. Hommages à France Cloarec-Heiss (Afrique et Language 7). 193–201. Louvain-Paris: Peeters. * Lukas, Johannes (1936) 'The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa.' ''Africa'', 9, 332–349. * Lukas, Johannes. Zentralsudanische Studien, Hamburg 1937; * * Newman, Paul (1977) 'Chadic classification and reconstructions.' ''Afroasiatic Linguistics'' 5, 1, 1–42. * Newman, Paul (1978) 'Chado-Hamitic 'adieu': new thoughts on Chadic language classification', in Fronzaroli, Pelio (ed.), ''Atti del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica Camito-Semitica''. Florence: Instituto de Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali, Università di Firenze, 389–397. * Newman, Paul (1980) ''The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic.'' Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden. * Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Kiyoshi Shimizu: ''Chadic lexical roots.'' Reimer, Berlin 1981. * Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Dymitr Ibriszimow: ''Chadic lexical roots.'' 2 volumes. Reimer, Berlin 1994 * Schuh, Russell (2003) 'Chadic overview', in M. Lionel Bender, Gabor Takacs, and David L. Appleyard (eds.), ''Selected Comparative-Historical Afrasian Linguistic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff'', LINCOM Europa, 55–60. ;Data sets *

References