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 language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania.

Nubian (and possibly Meroitic) gives Eastern Sudanic some of the earliest written attestations of African languages. However, the largest branch by far is 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 region of Sudan where the country of Sudan is located, and contrasts with Central Sudanic and Western Sudanic (modern Mande, in the Niger–Congo family).

Lionel Bender (1980) proposes several Eastern Sudanic isoglosses (defining words), such as ''*kutuk'' "mouth", ''*(ko)TVS-(Vg)'' "three", and ''*ku-lug-ut'' or ''*kVl(t)'' "fish".

In older classifications, such as that of Meinhof (1911), the term was used for the eastern Sudanic languages, largely equivalent to modern Nilo-Saharan ''sans'' Nilotic, which is the largest constituent of modern Eastern Sudanic.

Güldemann (2018, 2022) considers East Sudanic to be undemonstrated at the current state of research. He only accepts the evidence for a connection between the Nilotic and Surmic languages as "robust", and states that Rilly's evidence (see below) for the northern group comprising Nubian, Nara, Nyima, Taman and Meroitic "certainly look promising". He finds the Southern East Sudanic unit (comprising Nilotic, Surmic, Jebel, Temein and Daju) typologically coherent and, with the exclusion of Daju, showing likely correspondences among personal pronouns. ''Glottolog'' (2023) does not accept even a Surmic–Nilotic relationship.

Typology

The putative Eastern Sudanic languages are "surprisingly diverse" and resemble in this the larger Nilo-Saharan proposal. No common typological features unify them. A set of head-initial languages corresponds largely with the Southern group (typologically similar to also e.g. the Kadu and Central Sudanic families), and a set of head-final languages corresponds largely with the Northern group (typologically similar to also e.g. the Maban and Saharan families). Typological difference, however, does not preclude a relationship, and typological similarities with nearby certainly or likely unrelated languages suggests that these similarities might be partly areal. Omotic and Cushitic, in particular, are nearby head-final families belonging instead in the large Afro-Asiatic phylum and forming the Ethiopian language area.

Internal classification

There are several different classifications of East Sudanic languages.

Bender (2000)

Lionel Bender assigns the languages into two branches, depending on whether the 1st person singular pronoun ("I") has a /k/ or an /n/:

Rilly (2009)

Claude Rilly (2009:2) provides the following internal structure for the Eastern Sudanic languages.

Starostin (2015)

Starostin, using lexicostatistics, finds strong support for Bender's Northern branch, but none for the Southern branch. Eastern Sudanic as a whole is rated a probable working model, pending proper comparative work, while the relationship between Nubian, Tama, and Nara is beyond reasonable doubt.

Nyima is not part of the northern group, though it appears to be closest to it. (For one thing, its pronouns align well with the northern (Astaboran) branches.) Surmic, Nilotic, and Temein share a number of similarities, including in their pronouns, but not enough to warrant classifying them together in opposition to Astaboran without proper comparative work. Jebel and Daju also share many similarities with Surma and Nilotic, though their pronominal systems are closer to Astaboran.

Inclusion of Kuliak and Berta is not supported. Similarities with Kuliak may be due to both being Nilo-Saharan families, whereas Berta and Jebel form a sprachbund.

A similar classification was given in Starostin (2014):

* Eastern Sudanic
** Tama-Nara-Nubian branch
*** Tama
*** Nara-Nubian
**** Nara
**** Nubian
** Surmic branch
*** Northern Surmic (= Majang)
*** Southern Surmic
**** Southwest Surmic
**** Southeast Surmic
** Nilotic branch
*** Northern Nilotic
**** Western Nilotic
**** Eastern Nilotic
*** Southern Nilotic
** Daju
** Nyimang
** Temein
** Jebel

Blench (2019, 2021)

Roger Blench (2019) and (2021),Blench, Roger. 2023
In defence of Nilo-Saharan
like Starostin, only finds support for Bender's Northern branch. Blench proposes the following internal structure, supported by morphological evidence.

Dimmendaal & Jakobi (< 2020)

Dimmendaal & Jakobi (2020:394),Dimmendaal, Gerrit J. and Angelika Jakobi. 2020. Eastern Sudanic. In: Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. ''The Oxford Handbook of African Languages'', 392–407. Oxford: Oxford University Press. published in 2020 but written some times earlier, retains Bender's Southern branch; they also accept Berta:

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages (excluding Nilotic and Surmic languages):

References

Bibliography

* Bender, M. Lionel. 2000. "Nilo-Saharan". In: Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse (eds.), ''African Languages: An Introduction.'' Cambridge University Press.
* Bender, M. Lionel. 1981. "Some Nilo-Saharan isoglosses". In: Thilo Schadeberg, M. L. Bender (eds.), ''Nilo-Saharan: Proceedings of the First Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Leiden, Sept. 8–10, 1980.'' Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

Temein languages
(Roger Blench, 2007).
*
*
*Starostin, George. 2015.
Proto-East Sudanic ʽtreeʼ on the East Sudanic tree
'. 10th Annual Conference on Comparative-Historical Linguistics (in memory of Sergei Starostin).

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Proposed language families