Northern Songhay is the smaller of the two branches of the

Songhay languages The Songhay, Songhai or Ayneha languages (, or ) are a group of closely related languages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the West African countries of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. In particular, ...

. It is a group of heavily

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

-influenced dialects spoken in scattered oases of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

Languages

The nomadic varieties include Tihishit in central Niger around Mazababou (with two dialects,

Tagdal Tagdal (Tuareg name: ''Tagdalt'') is a mixed language, mixed Northern Songhay language of central Niger. Ethnologue considers it a "mixed Berber–Songhay language", while other researchers consider it Northern Songhay languages, Northern Songha ...

and

Tabarog Tagdal (Tuareg name: ''Tagdalt'') is a mixed Northern Songhay language of central Niger. Ethnologue considers it a "mixed Berber–Songhay language", while other researchers consider it Northern Songhay. Nicolaï (1981) argued that Tagdal was ...

) and

Tadaksahak Tadaksahak (also ''Daoussahak, Dausahaq'' and other spellings, after the Tuareg name for its speakers, ''Dăwsăhak'') is a Songhay language spoken by the pastoralist Idaksahak of the Ménaka Region and Gao Region of Mali. Its phonology, verb ...

(or ''Dawsahak'') spoken around

Ménaka Ménaka (Berber languages, Berber: ⵎⵏⴾⴰ) is a town and Communes of Mali, urban commune in Ménaka Cercle and Ménaka Region in eastern Mali. It is the seat and the largest town in the ''cercle'' and region. The town is set amidst the rocky ...

northeast of Gao (Heath 1999:xv). The sedentary varieties include Tasawaq in northern Niger (with two dialects, Ingelsi in

In-Gall In-Gall (var. In Gall, I-n-Gall, In-Gal, Ingal, Ingall) is a department, commune and town in the Agadez Region of northeast Niger, with a year-round population of less than 500. Known for its oasis and salt flats, In-Gall is the gathering po ...

and the extinct Emghedeshie of

Agadez Agadez ( Air Tamajeq: ⴰⴶⴰⴷⴰⵣ, ''Agadaz''), formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of the eponymous Agadez Region, the city lies in the Sahara ...

) and Korandje far to the north, 150 km east of the

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

n– Moroccan border at

Tabelbala Tabelbala (, , Korandje: ''tsawərbəts'') is a town and commune between Béchar and Tindouf in south-western Algeria, and is the capital, and only significant settlement, of the Daïra of the same name, encompassing most of the western half of ...

Classification

The main outside influence on all of these except on Korandje is the

Tamasheq Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North and West Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others bei ...

language cluster. Korandje appears to be influenced more by

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating ...

and Western Berber; in turn, the neighboring Northern Berber language Taznatit shows a few traces of Songhay influence. Since the Berber influence in these languages extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, Northern Songhay are sometimes viewed as

mixed language A mixed language, also referred to as a hybrid language or fusion language, is a type of contact language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. ...

s (Alidou & Wolff 2001).

References

* Alidou, Husseina & Ekkehardt Wolff. 2001. "On the Non-Linear Ancestry of Tasawaq (Niger), or: How “Mixed” Can a Language Be?" in ed. Derek Nurse, ''Historical Language Contact in Africa'', Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. *

Heath, Jeffrey Jeffrey Heath (born November 29, 1949) is Professor of Historical Linguistics, Morphology, Arabic and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Michigan, US. He is known particularly for his work in historical linguistics and for his extensive ...

. 1999. ''A grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni: the Songhay of Gao''. Köln: Köppe. 402 pp {{Songhay languages Songhay languages