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The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba
Nuba

Nuba is a collective term used here for the peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains, in Kordofan province, Sudan, Africa. Although the term is used to describe them as if they composed a single group, the Nuba are multiple distinct strains and use different forms of speech....
 hills of Kordofan Province, Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguistics, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic relationship of languages....
 added them to the Niger-Congo family
Niger-Congo languages

The Niger?Congo languages constitute one of the world's major Language family, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages....
, creating his Niger-Kordofanian
Niger-Kordofanian languages

The Niger-Kordofanian language family was proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1963 book Languages of Africa, originally under the name 'Congo-Kordofanian'....
 proposal. The Kordofanian languages have not been shown to be more distantly related than other branches of Niger-Congo, however, nor have they been shown to constitute a valid group. Today the Kadu family is excluded, and the other four usually included in Niger-Congo proper.

Heiban languages, also called Koalib or Koalib-Moro, and the Talodi languages, also called Talodi-Masakin, are closely related.

number of Rashad languages, also called Tegali-Tagoi, varies among different descriptions, from two (Williamson & Blench 2000), three (Ethnologue), to eight (Blench ms).






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The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba
Nuba

Nuba is a collective term used here for the peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains, in Kordofan province, Sudan, Africa. Although the term is used to describe them as if they composed a single group, the Nuba are multiple distinct strains and use different forms of speech....
 hills of Kordofan Province, Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguistics, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic relationship of languages....
 added them to the Niger-Congo family
Niger-Congo languages

The Niger?Congo languages constitute one of the world's major Language family, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages....
, creating his Niger-Kordofanian
Niger-Kordofanian languages

The Niger-Kordofanian language family was proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1963 book Languages of Africa, originally under the name 'Congo-Kordofanian'....
 proposal. The Kordofanian languages have not been shown to be more distantly related than other branches of Niger-Congo, however, nor have they been shown to constitute a valid group. Today the Kadu family is excluded, and the other four usually included in Niger-Congo proper.

Talodi-Heiban

The Heiban languages, also called Koalib or Koalib-Moro, and the Talodi languages, also called Talodi-Masakin, are closely related.

Rashad

The number of Rashad languages, also called Tegali-Tagoi, varies among different descriptions, from two (Williamson & Blench 2000), three (Ethnologue), to eight (Blench ms). Tagoi has a noun-class system like the Atlantic Congo languages—apparently borrowed,—while Tegali does not.

Katla languages

Roger Blench
Roger Blench

Roger Blench is a British linguistics, ethnomusicology and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and remains based in Cambridge, England....
 notes that the Talodi and Heiban languages have the noun-class
Noun class

In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional....
 systems characteristic of the Atlantic-Congo
Atlantic-Congo languages

In the classification of African languages, Atlantic-Congo constitutes the core of the Niger-Congo languages, with the noun class systems stereotypical of Niger-Congo....
 core of Niger-Congo, but that the two Katla languages have no trace of ever having had such a system, whereas the Kadu languages and some of the Rashad languages appear to have acquired noun classes as part of a Sprachbund
Sprachbund

A Sprachbund , from the German language word for ?language union?, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact....
 rather than having inherited them. He concludes that the Kordofanian languages do not form a genealogical group, but that Talodi and Heiban are core Niger-Congo whereas Katla and Rashad form a peripheral branch along the lines of Mande
Mande languages

The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mand? people and include Mandinka language, Soninke language, Bambara language, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo languages, Mende language, Susu language, Yacouba, Vai language, and Ligbi language....
.

Kadu languages


Since Schadeberg 1981c, the "Tumtum" or Kadu branch
Kadu languages

The Kadu, Kadugli?Krongo, or Tumtum languages are a small language family, once included in Kordofanian languages but since Thilo Schadeberg widely seen as Nilo-Saharan languages....
 is now widely seen as Nilo-Saharan
Nilo-Saharan languages

The Nilo-Saharan languages are a hypothetical group of African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari River and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet....
. However, the evidence is slight, and a conservative classification would treat it as an independent family.

Bibliography

  • Herman Bell. 1995. . Being a study of the published results from a major project of the Institute of African and Asian Studies: the Language Survey of the Nuba Mountains.
  • Roger Blench. Unpublished. .
  • P. A. and D. N. MacDiarmid. 1931. "The languages of the Nuba Mountains
    Nuba Mountains

    The Nuba Mountains are a mountain range in South Kordofan. The South Kordofan region is part of Kordofan province in central Sudan, Africa. The mountains cover an area roughly wide by long, and are 1500 to higher in elevation than the surrounding plain....
    ." Sudan Notes and Records 14: 149-162.
  • Carl Meinhof
    Carl Meinhof

    Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof was a Germany Linguistics and one of the first linguists to study African languages....
    . 1915-1919. "Sprachstudien im egyptischen Sudan". Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen 9-9. "1. Tagoy." 6: 164-161. "2. Tumale". 6:182-205. "11. Tegele." 7:110-131. "12. Rashad." 7:132.
  • Thilo C. Schadeberg. 1981a. A survey of Kordofanian. SUGIA Beiheft 1-2. Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag.
  • Thilo C. Schadeberg. 1981b. "Das Kordofanische". Die Sprachen Afrikas. Band 1: Niger-Kordofanisch, ed. by Bernt Heine, T. C. Schadeberg, Ekkehard Wolff, pp. 117-28 SUGIA Beiheft 1-2. Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag.
  • Thilo C. Schadeberg. 1981c. "The classification of the Kadugli language group". Nilo-Saharan, ed. by T. C. Schadeberg and M. Lionel Bender
    Lionel Bender

    Lionel Bender may refer to:*Lionel Bender , American author and co-author of several books, publications and essays regarding African languages...
    , pp. 291-305. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
  • Brenda Z. Seligmann. 1910-11. "Note on the language of the Nuba
    Nuba

    Nuba is a collective term used here for the peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains, in Kordofan province, Sudan, Africa. Although the term is used to describe them as if they composed a single group, the Nuba are multiple distinct strains and use different forms of speech....
    s of Southern Kordofan." Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen 1:167-188.
  • Roland C. Stevenson. 1956-57. "A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountains languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha, and Nyimang." Afrika und Übersee 40:73-84, 93-115; 41:27-65, 117-152, 171-196.
  • A. N. Tucker and M. A. Bryan. 1956. The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. (Handbook of African Languages, Part III.) Oxford University Press
    Oxford University Press

    Oxford University Press is a publisher and a department of the University of Oxford in England. It is the largest university press in the world, being larger than all the American university presses combined with Cambridge University Press....
    : London
    London

    London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
    .
  • A. N. Tucker and M. A. Bryan. 1966. Linguistic Analyses/The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. (Handbook of African Languages.) Oxford University Press
    Oxford University Press

    Oxford University Press is a publisher and a department of the University of Oxford in England. It is the largest university press in the world, being larger than all the American university presses combined with Cambridge University Press....
    : London
    London

    London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
    .
  • Lorenz Tutschek. 1848. "Über die Tumale-Sprache." Gelehrte Anzeigen, herausgegeben von Mitgliedern der k. bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften. Nrs. 91-93; Spalten 729-52. (=Bulletin der königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften. Nrs. 29-31.)
  • Lorenz Tutschek. 1848-50. "On the Tumali language". Proceedings of the Philological Society for 1846-47 and 1847-48. Vol 3:239-54. Proceedings of the Philological Society for 1848-49 and 1849-50. Vol. 4:138-9.


External links

  • (one of the Kadu languages
    Kadu languages

    The Kadu, Kadugli?Krongo, or Tumtum languages are a small language family, once included in Kordofanian languages but since Thilo Schadeberg widely seen as Nilo-Saharan languages....
    )