The Kaba languages, also called ''Sara Kaba'' but not to be confused with the

Sara languages The Sara languages comprise over a dozen Bongo–Bagirmi languages spoken mainly in Chad; a few are also spoken in the north of the Central African Republic. They are members of the Central Sudanic language family. Greenberg (1966) treats all vari ...

,Th
Sara Language Project
among others, argues that Sara Kaba is distinct from the Sara languages. comprise three to five languages of

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Repub ...

and the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of the C ...

. They are

Bongo–Bagirmi languages The Bongo–Bagirmi or Sara–Bongo–Bagirmi languages are the major branch of the Central Sudanic language family with about forty languages. Principal groups include Bagirmi languages such as Naba and the Sara languages. They are spoken ac ...

of the

Central Sudanic Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria an ...

language family. The most populous Kaba languages are

Kaba Deme Kaba may refer to: Places * Kaaba, the holiest place in the Islamic World, a large cube-shaped building inside the al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca * Kaba, Hungary, a town in Hajdú-Bihar County, Hungary, which had a rare carbonaceous chondri ...

and Kaba Naa (Kaba Na, Kaba Nar), spoken by about forty thousand people apiece. Others are Kaba proper (Ta Sara), Kaba/Sara Dunjo, and Kulfa (Kaba So, Kurmi). It is not clear that Naa, Dunjo, and Kaba proper (Ta Sara) are actually distinct languages. Kulfa speakers are ethnically distinct. The terms "Kaba" and "Sara" are generic and often interchangeable, and do not correspond to the somewhat arbitrarily named Kaba and Sara branches of Central Sudanic. Kabba and Kabba Laka, for example, are Sara languages, and many of the Kaba languages go under the names "Kaba", "Sara", and "Kaba Sara".

References

Roger Blench
Bongo–Bagirmi languages Languages of Chad Languages of the Central African Republic {{ns-lang-stub