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- In addition to Kunama, Berta, and the Eastern Sudanic and Central Sudanic languages (once in the Chari-Nile group), most scholars now consider Nilo-Saharan to include Songhai, Saharan, Maban, Komuz, and Fur.
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Nilo-Saharan languages, a group of languages that form one of the four language stocks or families on the African continent, the others being Afro-Asiatic, Khoisan, and Niger-Congo. The Nilo-Saharan languages are presumed to be descended from a common ancestral language and, therefore, to be genetically related.
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet.
- None
- ca. 70 million for all branches listed below.
- Proposed language family
In terms of numbers of speakers, the most significant divisions of Nilo-Saharan languages include Central Sudanic, Fur, Nilotic, Nubian, Saharan, Songhai, and Surmic. Songhai is spoken by more than 2 million people in Mali and Niger, and Kanuri (a Saharan language) is spoken by about 4.5 million in northeastern Nigeria and adjacent Chad and Niger.
The Nilo-Saharan family consists of approximately 160 languages and is one of four linguistic families in Africa. The family is subdivided into ten branches and further into other subgroups, languages, and dialects.
Saharan, Nilotic and Central Sudanic languages (previously grouped under the hypothetical Nilo-Saharan macro-family), are present in East Africa and Sahel. Austronesian languages are spoken in Madagascar and parts of the Comoros. Khoe–Kwadi languages are spoken principally in Namibia and Botswana.
SHOW ALL QUESTIONS. The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet.
