Fali comprises two languages spoken in northern

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

. Included in Greenberg's

Adamawa languages The Adamawa languages are a putative family of 80–90 languages scattered across the Adamawa Plateau in central Africa, in Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Chad, spoken altogether by only one and a half million people (as of 199 ...

(as group G11), it was excluded from that family by Boyd (1989).

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 works ...

suspects it may represent one of the earlier lineages to have branched off the Atlantic–Congo stock.

Varieties

According to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'' 16, the two branches of Fali are "different," but it is not clear how distinct they are. Blench apparently treats them as half a dozen languages in two branches. South Fali has 20,000 speakers, with several dialects. North Fali, with 16,000 speakers, also has several dialects; North Fali speakers were "rapidly" shifting to

Adamawa Fulfulde Adamawa Fulfulde is a variety of the Fula language. It is spoken mainly in Cameroon but also by significant communities residing in Nigeria, Chad, and Sudan by Fula people, Fulani pastoralists across the Sahel. It is also known as Eastern Fulfulde ...

by 1982. ;North Fali : Dourbeye (Fali-Dourbeye) : Bossum (Fali-Bossum) : Bvəri (Fali du Peske-Bori) ;South Fali : Kaang (Fali Kangou) : Bele (Fali-Bele) : Fali-Tinguélin The Nimbari language used to be spoken in the southern Fali area, but Nimbari people now speak Fali Kangou.Raimund Kastenholz, Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer. 2012
Nimbari as a language name
Adamawa Languages Project.

Varieties

See also

References

Further reading