Basic Introduction - African Languages

The recent statistical report says that, in the continent of Africa there are more than 200 languages spoken by the people.To be specific the number of languages, spoken in African continent lies between 2000 and 3000 languages.

Apart from this there are over 8000  dialects, that fits into these 300 languages.The major four classification of  language families that are spoken in Africa can be divided into six types namely

1)Afro - Asiatic

2)Nilo - Saharan

3)Niger - Congo A

4)Niger - Congo B

5)Khoi - San

6)Austronesian

The image below shows exactly where these kind of languages are spoken

In this article let us discuss about one of the family of African Languages called as Nilo - Saharan family.

Nilo - Saharan family

The Nilo-Saharan languages are mostly tonal and some of the  Nilo-Saharan languages add both prefixes and suffixes to verbs while others add only suffixes.

However the Nilo-Saharan languages do not have a noun class agreement system like that of the Bantu languages
of the Niger-Congo family.This Nilo-Saharan language family mainly covers the following regions

i)Most parts of Eastern Sahara

ii)The upper Nile Valley

iii)Areas around Lake Victoria in east central Africa and

iv)The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Around 1.8 crores tp 3 crores of people speak the languages which comes under this Nilo - Saharan languauge family.This Nilo-Saharan language family is divided into six subgroups and these includes

1)Nilotic (or Chari-Nile)

2)Songhai

3)Saharan

4)Maban

5)Koman and

6)Fur.

The ancestral language tongue was spoken was more than 1000 years ago and it is mainly spoken by the people in the Sahara between Chad and the Nile.

1)Nilotic (or Chari-Nile)

Out of the above six subgroups, Nilotic language is spoken widely,and this language is spoken along the Nile and Chari rivers. Languages in this subgroup includes

i)Luo - spoken in Kenya

ii)Masai (or Maasai) - spoken in Kenya and Tanzania and

iii)Nubian - spoken along the Nile Valley in Sudan and Egypt

Apart from the above languages, other languages in this subgroup are spoken mainly in countries mentioned below

i)Chad

ii)Ethiopia

iii)Uganda

iv)The Democratic Republic of the Congo and

v)The Central African Republic.

2)Songhai

Next subgroup is the Songhai and it is spoken along the Niger River in Mali and Niger.

3)Saharan

The Saharan subgroup group comprises languages that includes

i)Kanuri - spoken in Nigeria

ii)Teda - spoken in central Sahara and

iii)Zaghawa - spoken in Chad and Sudan.

4)Maban

Maban subgroup is spoken in mainly in Chad

5)Koman

The languages which are spoken under the Koman subgroup and they are mainly spoken along the portion of the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.

6)Fur

The last subgroup is the Fur subgroup and it is another small subgroup which is spoken in the Darfur province of Sudan.