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 around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...

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 ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

, 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 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 ...

. 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 po ...

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 make up 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 ...

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 placement in the western branch is "provisional".

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 Provin ...

, Mangbetu,

Lugbara Lugbara may refer to: *Lugbara people *Lugbara language Lugbara, or Lugbarati, is the language of the Lugbara people. It is spoken in the West Nile region in northwestern Uganda, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Orientale Provi ...

, 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 by G. J. Decorse and published by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes. Joseph Greenbe ...

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