The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of five language groups spoken in the Nuba Mountains of the

Kurdufan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory ...

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

Talodi–Heiban languages The Talodi–Heiban languages are a proposed branch of the hypothetical Niger–Congo family, spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The Talodi and Heiban languages are thought to be distantly related by Dimmendaal, though '' Glottolog'' 4.4 d ...

Lafofa languages Lafofa, also Tegem–Amira, is a dialect cluster spoken in the southern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. Blench (2010) considers the Tegem and Amira varieties to be distinct languages; as Lafofa is poorly attested, there may be others. ...

Rashad languages The Rashad languages form a small language family in the Nuba Hills of Sudan. They are named after Rashad District of South Kordofan. Classification Part of an erstwhile Kordofanian proposal, they are of uncertain position within the Niger� ...

Katla languages The Katla languages are two to three closely related languages that form a small language family in the Nuba Hills of Sudan. Part of an erstwhile Kordofanian proposal, they are of uncertain position within the hypothetical Niger–Congo family. ...

and Kadu languages. The first four groups are sometimes regarded as branches of the hypothetical Niger–Congo family, whereas Kadu is now widely seen as a branch of 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. ...

family.

History

In 1963,

Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on ...

added them to the Niger–Congo family, creating his Niger–Kordofanian proposal. The Kordofanian languages have not been shown to be more distantly related than other branches of Niger–Congo, however, and they have not been shown to constitute a valid group. Today, the Kadu languages are excluded, and the others are usually included in Niger–Congo proper.

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and w ...

notes that the Talodi and Heiban families have the noun class systems characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo core of Niger–Congo but that the two Katla languages have no trace of ever having had such a system. However, the Kadu languages and some of the Rashad languages appear to have acquired noun classes as part of a

Sprachbund A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lan ...

rather than having inherited them. Blench concludes that Talodi and Heiban are core Niger–Congo whereas Katla and Rashad form a peripheral branch along the lines of Mande. Heiban, Katloid, and Talodi are also grouped together in an automated computational analysis ( ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013).Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance. Map_of_the_languages_of_the_Nuba_Mountains

Map_of_the_languages_of_the_Nuba_Mountains

Talodi–Heiban languages

The Heiban languages, also called Koalib or Koalib–Moro, and the Talodi languages, also called Talodi–Masakin, are part of the Talodi–Heiban group.

Lafofa languages

Lafofa (Tegem) was for a time classified with Talodi, but appears to be a separate branch of Niger–Congo.

Rashad languages

The number of Rashad languages, also called Tegali–Tagoi, varies among descriptions, from two (Williamson & Blench 2000), three (Ethnologue), to eight (Blench ''ms''). Tagoi has a noun-class system like the Atlantic–Congo languages, which is apparently borrowed, but Tegali does not.

Katla languages

The two Katla languages have no trace of ever having had a Niger–Congo-type noun-class system.

Kadu languages

Since the work of

Thilo C. Schadeberg Thilo Christian Schadeberg (born 1942 in Dresden, Germany) is an Emeritus Professor of Bantu Linguistics at the Centre for Linguistics of Leiden University. Education and research Schadeberg obtained his PhD at the University of Marburg in 1 ...

in 1981, the "Tumtum" or Kadu branch is now widely seen as

. However, the evidence is slight, and a conservative classification would treat it as an independent family.

Reconstruction

Quint (2020) suggests that Proto-Kordofanian can be reconstructed from the Heibanian, Talodian, Rashadian, Katloid, and Lafofa languages. His Proto-Kordofanian reconstructions are as follows:Quint, Nicolas (2020). In: Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). ''The Oxford Handbook of African Languages'', 239-268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lexical isoglosses

Starostin (2018) lists the following common lexical isoglosses in the Kordofanian languages. Potential cognates are highlighted in bold.Starostin, George. 2018.
Preliminary lexicostatistical analysis for languages of the Nuba Mountains
'. 13th Annual Sergei Starostin Memorial Conference on Comparative-Historical Linguistics (RSUH, March 22-23, 2018). :

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary of the Heiban, Talodi, Rashad, and Lafofa branches: ''Note'': In table cells with slashes, the singular form is given before the slash, while the plural form follows the slash.

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages:

References

Bibliography

* Herman Bell. 1995
The Nuba Mountains: Who Spoke What in 1976?
. Being a study of the published results from a major project of the Institute of African and Asian Studies: the ''Language Survey of the Nuba Mountains''. * Roger Blench. Unpublished
Does Kordofanian constitute a group and if not, where does its languages fit into Niger-Congo?
* Roger Blench. Unpublished
Kordofanian and Niger–Congo: new and revised lexical evidence
* Roger Blench, 2011
Should Kordofanian be split up?
Nuba Hills Conference, Leiden * P. A. and D. N. MacDiarmid. 1931. "The languages of the Nuba Mountains." ''Sudan Notes and Records'' 14: 149-162. *

Carl Meinhof Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (23 July 1857 – 11 February 1944) was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages. Early years and career Meinhof was born in Barzwitz near Rügenwalde in the Province of Po ...

. 1915-1919. "Sprachstudien im egyptischen Sudan". ''Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen'' 9-9. "1. Tagoy." 6: 164-161. "2. Tumale". 6:182-205. "11. Tegele." 7:110-131. "12. Rashad." 7:132. *

. 1981a. ''A survey of Kordofanian.'' SUGIA Beiheft 1-2. Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag. *

. 1981b. "Das Kordofanische". ''Die Sprachen Afrikas.'' Band 1: ''Niger–Kordofanisch'', ed. by

Bernd Heine Bernd Heine (born 25 May 1939) is a German linguist and specialist in African studies. From 1978 to 2004 Heine held the chair for African Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany, now being a Professor Emeritus. His main focal points in re ...

, T. C. Schadeberg, Ekkehard Wolff, pp. 117–28 SUGIA Beiheft 1-2. Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag. *

. 1981c.
"The classification of the Kadugli language group"
''Nilo-Saharan'', ed. by T. C. Schadeberg and M. Lionel Bender, pp. 291–305. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. * Brenda Z. Seligmann. 1910-11. "Note on the language of the Nubas of Southern

Kordofan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory ...

." ''Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen'' 1:167-188. * Roland C. Stevenson. 1956-57. "A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountains languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha, and Nyimang." ''Afrika und Übersee'' 40:73-84, 93-115; 41:27-65, 117-152, 171-196. * Tucker, A. N. and M. A. Bryan. 1956. ''The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa.'' (Handbook of African Languages, Part III.)

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. * A. N. Tucker and M. A. Bryan. 1966. ''Linguistic Analyses/The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa.'' (Handbook of African Languages.)

. * Tutschek, Lorenz. 1848. "Über die Tumale-Sprache." ''Gelehrte Anzeigen, herausgegeben von Mitgliedern der k. bayer.'' Akademie der Wissenschaften. Nrs. 91-93; Spalten 729-52. (=''Bulletin der königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften''. Nrs. 29-31.) * Tutschek, Lorenz.. 1848-50. "On the Tumali language". ''Proceedings of the Philological Society for 1846-47 and 1847-48.'' Vol 3:239-54. ''Proceedings of the Philological Society for 1848-49 and 1849-50.'' Vol. 4:138-9.

External links

Roger Blench: Kordofanian materials
{{Authority control * Niger–Congo languages South Kordofan