Is Nilo-Saharan valid?
Nilo-Saharan genetic unity would necessarily be much older still and date to the late Upper Paleolithic. This larger classification system is not accepted by all linguists, however….Nilo-Saharan languages.
| Nilo-Saharan | |
|---|---|
| Linguistic classification | If valid, one of the world’s primary language families |
How many Nilo-Saharan languages are there?
The Nilo-Saharan language family includes 204 extremely diverse languages spoken by roughly 35 million people in the interior of northern Africa, including the greater Nile basin and its tributaries, as well as the central region of the Sahara desert.
Are Nilo Sahara languages tonal?
Tone. Most Nilo-Saharan languages are tonal; i.e., they use relative pitch on a syllable or word to mark lexical or grammatical distinctions. A number of them—western varieties of Songhai or northern varieties of Nubian—border on nontonal languages and are themselves only marginally tonal.
What is Chari-Nile and Koman?
Definition of Chari-Nile : a family of African languages of which the Nilotic, Nubian, Kunama, and Central Sudanic groups are branches.
Which language super family has the largest number of speakers?
Indo-European
Language families by speakers
| Language family | Approx. # of speakers | % of world population |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Indo-European | 2.562 billion | 44.78% |
| 2. Sino-Tibetan | 1.276 billion | 22.28% |
| 3. Niger-Congo | 358 million | 6.26% |
| 4. Afro-Asiatic | 340 million | 5.93% |
What is the main language of Nilo-Saharan?
Other modern Nilo-Saharan languages with more than a million speakers are the Saharan language Kanuri (mainly in Nigeria), Nile Nubian, and the Nilotic languages Dinka (South Sudan), Kalenjin (Kenya), Luo (mainly in Kenya and Tanzania), and Teso (Uganda and Kenya).
Where is Sino Tibetan spoken?
The Sino-Tibetan family comprises about 500 languages spoken across a wide geographic range, from the west coast of the Pacific to Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Speakers of these languages have played a major role in human prehistory, giving rise to early high cultures China, Tibet, Burma, and Nepal.
Is Omotic an afroasiatic?
Omotic is generally considered the most divergent branch of the Afroasiatic languages. Greenberg (1963) had classified it as the Western branch of Cushitic.
What language is Nilotic?
Eastern Nilotic languages include Bari, Teso-Turkana and other closely related languages [or dialects], Otuxo, Maa, and now-extinct Ongamo. Southern Nilotic languages are spoken in Kenya and Tanzania. Some Southern Nilotic languages include Datoga, Pakot, Endo, Saboat, and Nandi.
Is Kiswahili a Bantu language?
Swahili is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family and has a typical, complicated Bantu structure.
What is tonal polarity in African languages?
Tone polarity is the pattern where a tone-bearing unit (TBU) y has a tonal value which is the opposite of that of an immediately adjacent TBU x; TBU y is generally an affix. Mainstream theoretical discussions on tone polarity have so far been almost exclusively based on African languages.
What is the meaning of Nilo-Saharan?
Nilo-Saharan languages. Written By: 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.
Is Nilo-Saharan Africa a larger genetic unit than Niger-Congo?
A number of scholars have suggested that Nilo-Saharan forms a larger genetic unit with Niger-Congo.
What languages are included in Nilo-Saharan Africa?
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.
Is Meroitic a Nilo-Saharan language?
The extinct Meroitic language of ancient Kush has been accepted by linguists such as Rille, Dimmendaal, and Blench as Nilo-Saharan, though others argue for an Afroasiatic affiliation. It is poorly attested.