Songhay languages

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Songhay languages

The Songhay, Songhai, or Songai languages (or in the dialects of Gao and Timbuktu) are a group of closely related language

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s/dialect

Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s centered on the middle stretches of the Niger River

Niger River

The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about 4180 km . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea....
in the west Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the United Nations subregion of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:...
n nations of Mali

Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the C?te d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west....
, Niger

Niger

Niger , officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east....
, and Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north; its short coastline to the south leads to the Bight of Benin....
. They have been widely used as a lingua franca
Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues....
in that region ever since the era of the Songhay Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

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Encyclopedia

The Songhay, Songhai, or Songai languages (or in the dialects of Gao and Timbuktu) are a group of closely related language

Language

Dialect

Niger River

West Africa

Mali

Niger

Benin

Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a city in Tombouctou Region, in the West African nation of Mali. It was made prosperous by Mansa Musa, tenth mansa of the Mali Empire....
) as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education. The Gao dialect is reportedly unintelligible to speakers of the Zarma dialect of Niger, which has by far the most number of reported native speakers of any Songhay dialect or language.

For linguists, a major cause of interest in the Songhay languages has been the difficulty of determining their genetic affiliation; they are commonly taken to be 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....
, following 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....
1963, but this classification remains controversial, with little evidence to support it. Dimmendaal (2008) believes that for now it is best considered an independent language family.

The name Songhay is historically neither an ethnic nor a linguistic designation, but a name for the ruling caste of the Songhay Empire. Under the influence of French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
usage, speakers in Mali have increasingly been adopting it as an ethnic self-designation; however, other Songhay-speaking groups identify themselves with other ethnic terms, such as Zarma (Djerma

Djerma

The Djerma, also spelled Zerma, Zarma, Dyerma, or Zaberma, are a people of westernmost Niger and adjacent areas of Burkina Faso and Nigeria with small pockets living in urban areas of northern Ghana....
) or Isawaghen.

A few precolonial poems and letters composed in Songhay and written in the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
alphabet are extant in Timbuktu (preserved at the Ahmad Baba Center for Documentation and Historical Research). However, in modern times Songhay is written in the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
.

Dialect groupings and geographical distribution

Researchers classify the Songhay languages into two main branches, Southern and Northern.

Southern Songhay is centered on the Niger River. The subclassification of this branch is problematic. Some researchers have provisionally classified it into Eastern and Western. Heath 2005 describes shortcomings of this model. Nicolaï 1981 cautiously refrains from proposing a simple classification of Southern Songhay into two or three divisions. The proposed western division contains Djenné Chiini and – most prominently – Koyra Chiini
Koyra Chiini language

Koyra Chiini , or Western Songhay, is a variety of Songhai languages in Mali, spoken by about 200,000 people along the Niger River in Timbuktu and upriver from it in the towns of Dir?, Tonka, Mali, Goundam, and Niafunk?, as well as in the Saharan town of Araouane to its north....
(KCh) (meaning "town language"), which is the local language of the historically eminent university town of Timbuktu
Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a city in Tombouctou Region, in the West African nation of Mali. It was made prosperous by Mansa Musa, tenth mansa of the Mali Empire....
('Tombouctou' in French). Koyra Chiini has about 200,000 speakers. The proposed Eastern division contains the remaining Southern languages and dialects. Zarma
Zarma language

Zarma is the leading indigenous language of the Francophone West African nation of Niger, spoken in southwestern lobe of that country, where the Niger River flows and the capital city, Niamey, is located....
(Djerma
Djerma

The Djerma, also spelled Zerma, Zarma, Dyerma, or Zaberma, are a people of westernmost Niger and adjacent areas of Burkina Faso and Nigeria with small pockets living in urban areas of northern Ghana....
), the most widely spoken Songhay language with its two million speakers (1998), is a major language of southwestern Niger
Niger

Niger , officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east....
(downriver from and south of Mali) including in the capital city, Niamey
Niamey

Niamey, population 674,950 , is the Capital of Niger. It is Niger's largest city, lying on the Niger River, mostly on the east bank. It is an administrative, cultural and economic center....
. Downriver from Zarma in the country of Benin is Dendi, heavily influenced by the neighboring Bariba language of the Niger-Congo family. Upriver from Zarma is Kaado, spoken northwards up to the border with Mali. In Mali
Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. Mali is the seventh largest country in Africa, bordering Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the C?te d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west....
, Koyraboro Senni or Koroboro Senni (KS) (meaning "town dweller language"), with 400,000 speakers, is the language of the town of Gao, the seat of the old Songhay Empire. Koyra Chiini is spoken to its west. Humburi Senni, classified by Nicolaï 1981 as "Central Southern Songhay", is spoken in a Songhay language enclave around Hombori
Hombori

Hombori is a town in Mali, lying between Mopti and Gao on the slopes of the Hombori Tondo mesa. It is in the traditional region of Gourma, and the current Mopti Region, Cercle of Douentza....
, south of the Niger River's great bend. Another Eastern Southern dialect was discovered in 1998 in several villages about 120 km west of Hombori: its speakers call it Tondi Songway Kiini (TSK) (meaning "mountain Songhay language"). Among the Malian Songhay languages, TSK is the only one with lexical tones, and in several ways it seems to be the most conservatively evolved member.
The much smaller Northern Songhay is a group of heavily Berber
Berber languages

The Berber languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, as well as by Berber people communities in parts of Niger and Mali....
-influenced dialects spoken in the Sahara
Sahara

The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometers , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe....
. The nomadic varieties include Tihishit in central Niger around Mazababou (with two sub-dialects, Tagdal and Tabarog) and Tadaksahak
Tadaksahak language

Tadaksahak is a Songhay languages language spoken primarily in Mali....
spoken around Menaka
Menaka

In Hindu mythology, Menaka is considered one of the most beautiful of the heavenly Apsaras.She was sent by Indra, the king of the Deva , to break the severe penance undertaken by Vishwamitra....
northeast of Gao. The sedentary varieties include Tasawaq in northern Niger (with two dialects, Ingelsi in In-Gall
In-Gall

In-Gall is a town in the Agadez Department of northeast Niger, with a year-round population of less than 500.Known for its oasis and salt flats, In-Gall is the gathering point for the Cure Salee festival of Tuareg and Wodaabe pastoralists to celebrate the end of the rainy season each September....
and the extinct Emghedeshie of Agadez
Agadez

Agadez is the largest city in northern Niger, with a population of 88,569 . It lies in the Sahara and is the capital of A?r, one of the traditional Tuareg federations....
) and Korandje
Korandje language

Korandje is by far the most northerly of the Songhay languages. It is spoken around the oasis of Tabelbala by no more than a few thousand people; its name, Kora-n-dje, means "village's language"....
far to the north, 150 km east of the Algeria
Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country of the Mediterranean sea, second largest in the Arab World, and the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area....
-Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
border at Tabelbala
Tabelbala

Tabelbala is an oasis between B?char and Tindouf in southwestern Algeria. It consists mainly of two ksars, Ksar Sidi Zekri and Ksar Chera?a , as well as Sidi Makhlouf , and a more recent colonial-era town known simply as le Village....
. The main outside influence on all of these except on Korandje is the Tamasheq
Tuareg languages

Tuareg is a Berber languages language or family of closely related languages spoken by the Tuareg, in many parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso ...
language cluster. Korandje appears to be influenced more by Northern Berber
Northern Berber languages

The Northern Berber languages are a language continuum across the Maghreb that form a sub-family within the Berber languages. Their continuity is broken by the spread of Arabic language, and to a lesser extent by the Zenati languages subgroup, which, though unmistakably Northern Berber, shares certain innovations not found in the surrounding...
. Since the Berber influence extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, the Northern Songhay languages are sometimes viewed as mixed language
Mixed language

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source....
s (cf. Alidou & Wolff 2001).

Proposals on the genetic affiliation of Songhay

Westermann

Diedrich Hermann Westermann

Diedrich Hermann Westermann was a Germany missionary, Africanist, and linguistics. He substantially extended and revised the work of Carl Meinhof, his teacher, although he rejected some of Meinhof's theories only implicitly....
hesitated between assigning it to Gur

Gur languages

The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the Niger-Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to this group. They are spoken in southeast Mali, Burkina Faso, northern C?te d'Ivoire, Ghana, northern Togo, Benin and southwestern Niger....
or considering it an isolate, and Delafosse

Maurice Delafosse

Maurice Delafosse was a France ethnography and colonial official who also worked in the field of the languages of Africa. In a review of his daughter's autobiography of him he was described as "one of the most outstanding French colonial administrators and ethnologists of his time." Delafosse had disagreements with the French government ove...
grouped it with Mande

Mande languages

Nilo-Saharan languages

Joseph Greenberg

African languages

There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. They fall into four major language family:*Afro-Asiatic languages stretches from North Africa to the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia....
; Greenberg's argument is based on about 70 claimed cognate

Cognate

Cognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymology origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt vs....
s, including pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s. This proposal has been developed further by, in particular, 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...
and Christopher Ehret

Christopher Ehret

Christopher Ehret , a professor of African History at UCLA since 1968, is a major figure in African history and African historical linguistics, particularly known for his efforts to correlate linguistic taxonomy and reconstruction with the archaeological record....
; Bender sees it as an independent subfamily of Nilo-Saharan, while Ehret, based on 565 claimed cognates, regards it as most closely related to the Maban languages

Maban languages

The Maban languages are a small family of Nilo-Saharan languages spoken in Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. This group includes the following languages:...
of western 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....
and eastern Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west....
. 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 Songhay shares the defining singulative–plurative morphology typical of Nilo-Saharan languages, though it is difficult to show that any of the branches of Nilo-Saharan are actually related.

However, a Nilo-Saharan classification is not uncontroversial. Greenberg's argument was subjected to serious criticism by Lacroix (1969, pp. 91-92), who deemed only about 30 of Greenberg's claimed cognates acceptable, and moreover argued that these held mainly between Zarma

Zarma language

Zarma is the leading indigenous language of the Francophone West African nation of Niger, spoken in southwestern lobe of that country, where the Niger River flows and the capital city, Niamey, is located....
and the neighboring Saharan languages

Saharan languages

The Saharan languages are a subgroup of Nilo-Saharan languages spoken across parts of the eastern Sahara, extending from northwestern Darfur to southern Libya, north and central Chad, eastern Niger and northeastern Nigeria....
, thus leading one to suspect them of being loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s. Certain Songhay-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....
similarities have long been observed (at least since Westermann), and Mukarovsky (1966), Creissels (1981), and Nicolaï (1977, 1984) investigated the possibility of a Mande relationship; Creissels made some 50 comparisons, including many body parts and morphological

Morphology (linguistics)

Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules....
suffixes (such as the causative

Causative

A causative form, in linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action .All languages have ways to express causation, but they differ in the means....
in -endi), while Nicolaï claimed some 450 similar words as well as some conspicuous typological

Typology

"Typology" is the study of types. More specifically, it may refer to:*Typology , division of culture by races*Typology , classification of things according to their characteristics...
traits. However, Nicolaï eventually concluded that this approach was not adequate, and in 1990 proposed a distinctly novel hypothesis: that Songhay is a Berber

Berber languages

The Berber languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, as well as by Berber people communities in parts of Niger and Mali....
-based creole language

Creole language

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable language that originates seemingly as a nativization pidgin. This understanding of creole genesis culminated in Robert A....
, restructured under Mande influence. In support of this he proposed 412 similarities, ranging all the way from basic vocabulary (tasa "liver

Liver

The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals; it has a wide range of functions, a few of which are detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion....
") to obvious borrowings (anzad "violin

Violin

The violin is a Bow string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
", alkaadi "qadi

Qadi

Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with the sharia, Islamic religious law. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims....
".) Others, such as Gerrit Dimmendaal, were not convinced, and Nicolaï (2003) appears to consider the question of Songhay's origins still open, while arguing against Ehret and Bender's proposed etymologies.

Greenberg's morphological similarities with Nilo-Saharan include the personal pronouns ai (cf. Zaghawa

Zaghawa language

The Zaghawa language is a Saharan_languages spoken by the Zaghawa people of eastern central Chad and northwestern Sudan .The people who speak this language call it Beria. They are called the Beri people....
ai), 'I', ni (cf. Kanuri

Kanuri language

Kanuri is a dialect continuum spoken by approximately four million people in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, as well as small minorities in southern Libya and by a diaspora in Sudan....
nyi), 'you (sg.)', yer (eg Kanuri -ye), 'we', wor (cf. Kanuri -wi), 'you (pl.)'; relative and adjective formants -ma (eg Kanuri -ma) and -ko (cf. Maba -ko), a plural suffix -an, a hypothetical plural suffix -r (cf. Teso -r) which he takes to appear in the pronouns yer and wor, intransitive/passive -a (cf. Teso -o).

The most striking of the Mande similarities listed by Creissels are the third person pronouns a sg. (pan-Mande a), i pl. (pan-Mande i or e), the demonstratives wo "this" (cf. Manding o, wo) and no "there" (cf. Soninke no, other Mande na), the negative na (found in a couple of Manding dialects) and negative perfect mana (cf. Manding má, má?), the subjunctive ma (cf. Manding máa), the copula ti (cf. Bisa ti, Manding de/le), the verbal connective ka (cf. Manding kà), the suffixes -ri (resultative - cf. Mandinka -ri, Bambara -li process nouns), -ncè (ethnonymic, cf. Soninke -nke, Mandinka -nka), -anta (ordinal, cf. Soninke -ndi, Mandinka -nja?...), -anta (resultative participle, cf. Soninke -nte), -endi (causative, cf. Soninke, Mandinka -ndi), and the postposition ra "in" (cf. Manding lá, Soso ra...)

External links

Maps showing the Songhay languages of and

Bibliography

Publisher and publication abbreviations: CSLI = Center for the Study of Language and Information. IFAN = Institut Français d'Afrique Noire (since renamed the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire

Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire

IFAN is a cultural and scientific institute in the nations of the former French West Africa. Founded in Dakar, Senegal in 1938 as the Institut Fran?ais d?Afrique Noire , it was headquartered in what is now the building of the IFAN Museum of African Arts....
SELAF = Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France. SUGIA = Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, journal published by Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne (Köln). Köppe = Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Charles, M. C. & J. M. Ducroz. 1976. Lexique songay-français, parler kaado du Gorouol. Paris: Leroux.
. 1917. Essai pratique de méthode pour l'étude de la langue songoï ou songaï [...]. Paris: Ernest Leroux.
Heath, Jeffrey. 1999. A grammar of Koyra Chiini: the Songhay of Timbuktu. Mouton de Gruyter. 453 pp
Heath, Jeffrey. 1999. A Grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni: the Songhay of Gao. Köln: Köppe. 402 pp
Heath, Jeffrey. 2005. Tondi Songway Kiini (Songhay, Mali): reference grammar and TSK-English-French dictionary. Stanford: CSLI. 440 pp
Nicolaï, Robert. 1981. Les dialectes du songhay: contribution à l'étude des changements linguistiques. Paris: SELAF. 302 pp
Nicolaï, Robert & Petr Zima. 1997. Songhay. LINCOM-Europa. 52 pp
Prost, R.P.A. [André]. 1956. La langue sonay et ses dialectes. Dakar: IFAN. Series: Mémoires de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire; 47. 627 pp
Alidou, Husseina & Ekkehardt Wolff. 2001. "On the Non-Linear Ancestry of Tasawaq (Niger), or: How “Mixed” Can a Language Be?" in ed. Derek Nurse, Historical Language Contact in Africa, Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

On genetic affiliation

Bender, M. Lionel. 1996. The Nilo-Saharan Languages: A Comparative Essay. München: LINCOM-Europa. 253 pp
D. Creissels. 1981. "De la possibilité de rapprochements entre le songhay et les langues Niger-Congo (en particulier Mandé)." In Th. Schadeberg, M. L. Bender, eds., Nilo-Saharan : Proceedings Of The First Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Leiden, September 8-10, pp. 185-199. Foris Publications.
Ehret Christopher. 2001. A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan. SUGIA - Supplement 12. Köln: Köppe. 663 pp
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....
, 1963. The Languages of Africa (International Journal of American Linguistics 29.1). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Lacroix, Pierre-Francis. 1971. "L'ensemble songhay-jerma: problèmes et thèmes de travail". In Acte du 8ème Congrès de la SLAO (Société Linguistique de l’Afrique Occidentale), Série H, Fasicule hors série, 87–100. Abidjan: Annales de l’Université d’Abidjan.
Mukarovsky, H. G. 1966. "Zur Stellung der Mandesprachen". Anthropos, 61:679-88.
Nicolaï, Robert. 1977. "Sur l'appartenance du songhay". Annales de la faculté des lettres de Nice, 28:129-145.
Nicolaï, Robert. 1984. Préliminaires à une étude sur l'origine du songhay: matériaux, problématique et hypothèses, Berlin: D. Reimer. Series: Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde. Serie A, Afrika; 37. 163 pp
Nicolaï, Robert. 1990. Parentés linguistiques (à propos du songhay). Paris: CNRS. 209 pp
Nicolaï, Robert. 2003. La force des choses ou l'épreuve 'nilo-saharienne': questions sur les reconstructions archéologiques et l'évolution des langues. SUGIA - Supplement 13. Köln: Köppe. 577 pp