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Researchers classify the Songhay languages into two main branches; Southern and Northern. Southern Songhay is centered on the Niger River. Zarma ( Djerma ), the most widely spoken Songhay language with two or three million speakers, is a major language of southwestern Niger (downriver from and south of Mali) including in the capital city, Niamey .
- Nilo-Saharan?Songhay–Saharan?Songhay
The Songhai people (autonym: Ayneha) are an ethnolinguistic group in West Africa who speak the various Songhai languages. Their history and lingua franca is linked to the Songhai Empire which dominated the western Sahel in the 15th and 16th century.
- 406,000 (2.9%)
- 5,106,423 (21.2%)
- 1,984,114 (5.9%)
Zarma (Zarma Ciine/Sanni; Ajami: زَرْمَ ݘِينٜ / زَرْمَ سَنِّ) is one of the Songhay languages. It is the leading indigenous language of the southwestern lobe of the West African nation of Niger, where the Niger River flows and the capital city, Niamey, is located.
- 4.2 million (2019)
- Southwestern Niger
Songhai languages, group of closely related languages generally assumed to constitute the primary branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Songhai languages are spoken mainly along the Niger River, from Djenné and Timbuktu in Mali eastward as far as Benin, with extensions into adjacent.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jun 27, 2018 · Africa. Nigeria Political Geography. Songhay. views 1,248,814 updated Jun 27 2018. Songhay. PRONUNCIATION: song-HIGH. LOCATION: Eastern Mali, western Niger, northern Benin. POPULATION: 3.5 million. LANGUAGE: Dialects of Songhay; French. RELIGION: Islam combined with indigenous beliefs. RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 1: Beninese; Malians; Nigeriens.
History of research on the Songhay language. Although the study of ancient Arabic manuscripts reveals some writings in the Fulfulde (Fulani) and soŋay (Songhay) languages, the systematic analysis of soŋay did not begin until the end of the nineteenth century, at the beginning of the colonial period. Delafosse is interested in the geopolitics ...
Songhay is a language group of the West African Sahel region with more than four million speakers, distributed mainly in western Niger and northeastern Mali along the Niger River, but including outlying pockets scattered as far afield as Algeria, Ghana, and Sudan.