Chadic languages

The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 196 languages^[1] spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, and northern Cameroon. By far the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland Eastern West Africa, particularly Niger and the northern half of Nigeria. Hausa is the only Chadic language with more than 1 million speakers.^{[citation needed]}

Composition

Paul Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Roger Blench (2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic.^[2] Subsequent work by Joseph Lovestrand argues strongly that Kujarge is a valid member of East Chadic. The placing of Luri as a primary split of West Chadic is erroneous. Bernard Caron (2004) shows that this language is South Bauchi and part of the Polci cluster. A suggestion for including the language isolate Kujargé as an early-diverged member, which subsequently became influenced by East Chadic, has been made by Blench (2008).^[3]

• Chadic
  • West Chadic
    • the Hausa, Ron, Bole, and Angas languages
    • the Bade, Warji, and Zaar languages
  • Biu–Mandara (Central Chadic)
    • the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups
    • the Buduma and Musgu languages
    • Gidar
  • East Chadic
    • the Tumak, Nancere, and Kera languages
    • the Dangaléat, Mukulu, and Sokoro languages
  • Masa

Loanwords

Chadic languages contain many Nilo-Saharan loanwords from either the Songhay or Maban branches, pointing to early contact between Chadic and Nilo-Saharan speakers as Chadic was migrating west.^[4]

Although Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited.^[5]

Pronouns

Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351):^[6]

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary in different Chadic branches listed in order from west to east, with reconstructions of other Afroasiatic branches also given for comparison:

Bibliography

• Caron, Bernard 2004. Le Luri: quelques notes sur une langue tchadique du Nigeria. In: Pascal Boyeldieu & Pierre Nougayrol (eds.), Langues et Cultures: Terrains d’Afrique. Hommages à France Cloarec-Heiss (Afrique et Language 7). 193–201. Louvain-Paris: Peeters.
• Lukas, Johannes (1936) 'The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa.' Africa, 9, 332–349.
• Lukas, Johannes. Zentralsudanische Studien, Hamburg 1937;
• Newman, Paul & Ma, Roxana (1966). "Comparative Chadic: Phonology and lexicon". Journal of African Languages. 5: 218–251. hdl:2022/21342
• Newman, Paul (1977) 'Chadic classification and reconstructions.' Afroasiatic Linguistics 5, 1, 1–42.
• Newman, Paul (1978) 'Chado-Hamitic 'adieu': new thoughts on Chadic language classification', in Fronzaroli, Pelio (ed.), Atti del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica Camito-Semitica. Florence: Instituto de Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali, Università di Firenze, 389–397.
• Newman, Paul (1980) The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
• Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Kiyoshi Shimizu: Chadic lexical roots. Reimer, Berlin 1981.
• Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Dymitr Ibriszimow: Chadic lexical roots. 2 volumes. Reimer, Berlin 1994
• Schuh, Russell (2003) 'Chadic overview', in M. Lionel Bender, Gabor Takacs, and David L. Appleyard (eds.), Selected Comparative-Historical Afrasian Linguistic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff, LINCOM Europa, 55–60.

Data sets

• Kraft, Charles H. (1981). "CLDF:Wordlist". CLDF dataset derived from Kraft's "Chadic Wordlists" from 1981. Geneva. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3534953

See also

• Proto-Chadic reconstructions (Wiktionary)

References

1. ^ "Chadic Languages; Ethnologue"
2. ^ Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List Archived 2013-10-07 at the Wayback Machine (ms)
3. ^ Blench, Roger. 2008. Links between Cushitic, Omotic, Chadic and the position of Kujarge Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine. 5th International Conference of Cushitic and Omotic languages.
4. ^ Ehret, Christopher (5 December 2006). "The Nilo-Saharan background of Chadic". Studies in African Linguistics. 35: 56–66. doi:10.32473/sal.v35i0.107316. S2CID 195404449
5. ^ Blench, Roger. 2012. Linguistic evidence for the chronological stratification of populations South of Lake Chad. Presentation for Mega-Tchad Colloquium in Naples, September 13–15, 2012.
6. ^ Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. ^ Jungraithmayr, Herrmann; Ibriszimow, Dymitr (1994). Chadic Lexical Roots: Tentative reconstruction, grading, distribution and comments. (Sprache und Oralität in Afrika; 20), volume I, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.
8. ^ Cosper, Ronald. 2015. Hausa dictionary. In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) The Intercontinental Dictionary Series. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://ids.clld.org/contributions/220 Archived 2020-01-01 at the Wayback Machine, Accessed on 2019-12-31.)
9. ^ Blench, Roger. no date. Ron comparative wordlist Archived 2015-04-21 at the Wayback Machine.
10. ^ Shimizu, Kiyoshi. 1978. The Southern Bauchi group of Chadic languages: a survey report. (Africana Marburgensia: Sonderheft, 2.) Marburg/Lahn: Africana Marburgensia.
11. ^ Cosper, Ronald. 2015. Polci dictionary. In: Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) The Intercontinental Dictionary Series. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://ids.clld.org/contributions/221 Archived 2020-01-01 at the Wayback Machine, Accessed on 2019-12-31.)
12. ^ Gravina, Richard. 2014. Proto-Central Chadic Lexicon Archived 2021-01-20 at the Wayback Machine. Webonary.
13. ^ Shryock, Aaron (June 1997). "The classification of the Masa group of languages". Studies in African Linguistics. 26 (1): 30–62. doi:10.32473/sal.v26i1.107396. S2CID 185914860
14. ^ Doornbos, Paul. 1981. Field notes on Kujarge, language metadata, 200-word list plus numerals and pronouns.
15. ^ Ehret, Christopher (1987). "Proto-Cushitic Reconstruction". Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika. 8: 7–180.
16. ^ Aklilu, Yilma (2003). "Comparative phonology of the Maji languages". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 36: 59–88.
17. ^ Kossmann, Maarten. 2009. Tarifiyt Berber vocabulary Archived 2024-05-26 at the Wayback Machine. In: Haspelmath, Martin & Tadmor, Uri (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
18. ^ Kogan, Leonid (2012). "Proto-Semitic Lexicon". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 179–258. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.
19. ^ Ehret, Christopher (1995). Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09799-8.