Search results
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, [1] mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. The languages extend through 17 nations in the northern half of Africa: from Algeria to ...
- None
- ca. 70 million for all branches listed below.
- Proposed language family
Most languages natively spoken in Africa belong to one of the two large language families that dominate the continent: Afroasiatic, or Niger–Congo. Another hundred belong to smaller families such as Ubangian, Nilotic, Saharan, and the various families previously grouped under the umbrella term Khoisan. In addition, the languages of Africa ...
- Overview
- Linguistic characteristics
- Morphology
- Verbs
- Gender
The considerable typological diversity that characterizes the Nilo-Saharan languages corresponds to their wide geographic spread. Structural properties—for example, with respect to sound systems and word order—often are shared with unrelated neighbouring language groups. Thus, rich and complex consonant systems with universally rare distinctions—su...
The considerable typological diversity that characterizes the Nilo-Saharan languages corresponds to their wide geographic spread. Structural properties—for example, with respect to sound systems and word order—often are shared with unrelated neighbouring language groups. Thus, rich and complex consonant systems with universally rare distinctions—su...
Apart from widespread lexical roots whose form and meaning relationships are similar, there are grammatical properties that clearly point toward a common historical origin for the Nilo-Saharan languages. Bari, a Nilotic language of South Sudan, demonstrates one widespread morphological property whereby either the singular or the plural form of a no...
The verb tends to constitute the most complex aspect of Nilo-Saharan languages. It frequently involves extensive marking for conjugational features such as person, number, tense (the expression of time), aspect, or voice, with consonant mutation often accompanying such morphological processes. A widespread and rather permanent distinction is that b...
Gender distinctions between masculine and feminine (or neuter) nouns are common in the neighbouring Afro-Asiatic family (as they are in Indo-European languages) but not in Nilo-Saharan, which has only a few exceptions. Gender as a derivational property of nouns is found, for example, in Southern and Western Nilotic languages, whereas in the Eastern...
People also ask
How many Nilo-Saharan languages are there?
Which Nilo-Saharan languages have fewer speakers?
Where did the Nilo-Saharan language come from?
How many people speak Nilotic languages?
Nilo-Saharan languages, Group of perhaps 115 African languages spoken by more than 27 million people from Mali to Ethiopia and from southernmost Egypt to Tanzania.The concept of Nilo-Saharan as a single stock combining a number of earlier groupings was introduced in 1963 by Joseph H. Greenberg; most Africanists accepted it as a working hypothesis, though shifts have taken place.
Jan 31, 2023 · The Nilo-Saharan Languages Of Africa. There are around 80 languages in the Nilo-Saharan family. These tonal languages are spread throughout parts of central, eastern and northeastern Africa, including places like Chad, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. Examples of Nilo-Saharan languages include Lugbara in Uganda, Zarma in Niger and Dholuo in Kenya.
The diffusion of Nilo-Saharan languages. The original expansion of the Nilo-Saharan family may have been associated with the Aquatic industry. This industry, which dates to the 8th millennium bce, is a conglomeration of cultures that exploited the food resources of lakes, rivers, and surrounding areas from Lake Rudolf in East Africa to the bend of the Niger River in West Africa during a long ...
Mar 13, 2023 · The Nilo-Saharan language family is the second-largest in Africa, with over 200 languages spoken across parts of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa. Some of the most widely spoken Nilo-Saharan languages in Africa include Dinka, Maasai, and Nuer. The Niger-Congo language family is the third-largest in Africa, with over 1,000 languages spoken ...
