Kresh is a small language group of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

. It is generally considered to be a branch of the

Central Sudanic languages 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 and ...

. Boyeldieu (2010) judges that this has yet to be demonstrated satisfactorily, but Starostin (2016) finds convincing evidence, and that its closest relative within that family appears to be Birri. Kresh is generally considered a

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...

, but it is dialectically diverse. Blench (2000 ms) lists five Kresh languages, four of which (Kresh, Gbaya, Woro, and Dongo) ''Ethnologue'' counts among seven dialects of Kresh/Gbaya (or eight, counting Aja). Kresh and Gbaya, however, are merely

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, o ...

and

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, o ...

, not coherent languages; they are equivalent to five varieties listed by ''Ethnologue''. ''Ethnologue'' notes that the varieties are not mutually intelligible, but that Kresh-Ndogo (Gbaya-Ndogo) is universally understood as a

prestige variety In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally con ...

, and that Naka is also commonly understood as the most populous variety. Blench (2000) also includes Furu (Bagero) as a Kresh language, though ''Ethnologue'' classifies it as

Kara Kara or KARA may refer to: Geography Localities * Kara, Chad, a sub-prefecture * Kára, Hungary, a village * Kara, Uttar Pradesh, India, a township * Kara, Iran, a village in Lorestan Province * Kara, Republic of Dagestan, a rural locality in D ...

. In addition,

Aja Aja or AJA may refer to: Acronyms *AJ Auxerre, a French football club *Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport's IATA airport code *Al Jazeera America, an American news channel *American Jewish Archives *''American Journal of Archaeology'' *, a Germa ...

is spoken by ethnic Kresh, but though it remains Kresh grammatically, it has been relexified by the unrelated

Banda languages Banda is a family of Ubangian languages spoken by the Banda people of Central Africa. Banda languages are distributed in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. Languages Olson (1996) Olson (1996) class ...

(Santandrea 1976).

Languages

Several Kresh varieties are not mutually intelligible: *

(Gbaya) * Kresh proper -- Ndogo (Gbaya) + Naka (Boro, Kpara) + Kresh-Hofra (Ngbongbo) + Woro (Orlo) (southernmost). * Dongo (northernmost, close to Kresh proper) The names ''Gbaya'', ''Dongo'' and ''Ndogo'' are ambiguous, as they are also used for unrelated

Ubangian languages The Ubangian languages form a diverse linkage of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango. They are ...

. Furu was once classified as Kresh, but is now recognized as

Sara Sara may refer to: Arts, media and entertainment Film and television * ''Sara'' (1992 film), 1992 Iranian film by Dariush Merhjui * ''Sara'' (1997 film), 1997 Polish film starring Bogusław Linda * ''Sara'' (2010 film), 2010 Sri Lankan Sinhal ...

References

Nilo-Saharan list
(Blench 2000) {{Nilo-Saharan families Central Sudanic languages Languages of South Sudan Language families