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Chadic languages

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Chadic
Geographic
distribution
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon
Linguistic classificationAfro-Asiatic
  • Chadic
Proto-languageProto-Chadic
Subdivisions
ISO 639-5cdc
Glottologchad1250
Map of the distribution of the Chadic languages within Africa

Detailed map of the distribution of Chadic languages in Western and Central Africa

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.

Composition

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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]

A chart of the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic languages.

Loanwords

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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

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

Pronoun Proto-Chadic Proto-Afroasiatic
1 *ní *i ~ *yi
2M *ka *ku, *ka
2F *ki(m) *kim
3M *nì *si, *isi
3F *ta
1PL *mun (incl.), *na (excl.) (*-na ~ *-nu ~ *-ni) ?
2PL *kun *kuuna
3PL *sun *su ~ *usu

Comparative vocabulary

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

Language eye ear nose tooth tongue mouth blood bone tree water eat name
Proto-Chadic[7] *ydn *km/*ɬm *ntn *s₃n; *ƙ-d *ls₃- *bk *br *ƙs₃ *ymn *hrɗ (hard); *twy (soft) *s₃m
Hausa[8] ido kunne hanci haƙori harshe baki jini ƙashi itaci; bishiya ruwa ci suna
Proto-Ron[9] *kumu **atin *haŋgor *liʃ *fo ɟɑ̄lɑ̄, tɾɔ̃̄ *kaʃ *sum
Proto-South Bauchi[10] *(gwà)yìr(-ŋ) *kə̂m(-si) *bʸak(-ì) *bìràm *gu(ŋ)ul *pit-ə̀ *(yì)sûm(-s₃)
Polci[11] yiir kəəm cin shen haƙori bii buran; bəran gooloo pət maa ci suŋ
Proto-Central Chadic[12] *hadaj; *tsɨʸ *ɬɨmɨɗʸ *hʷɨtsɨnʸ *ɬɨɗɨnʸ *ɗɨrɨnɨhʸ; *ɣanaɗʸ; *naɬɨj *maj *ɗiɬ; *kɨrakaɬʸ *hʷɨp *ɗɨjɨm *zɨm *ɬɨmɨɗʸ
Proto-Masa[13] *ir *hum *cin *s- *si *vun *vuzur *sok *gu *mb- *ti *sem
Kujarge[14] kunɟu kumayo ~ kime kaata kiya aliŋati apa ɪbɪrí (kaɟeɟa), kàyɛ́ya kaʃíè ʃia (tona), tuye [imp. sg.]; tuwona [imp. pl.] rúwà
Other Afroasiatic branches
Proto-Cushitic[15] *ʔil- *ʔisŋʷ- *ʔiɬkʷ- *caanrab- *ʔaf-/*yaf- *mikʷ’-; *moc’- *-aħm-/*-uħm-; *ɬaam- *sim-/*sum-
Proto-Maji[16] *ʔaːb *háːy *aːç’u *eːdu *uːs *inču *haːy *um
Tarifiyt Berber[17] ŧit’t’ aməžžun, aməz’z’uɣ ŧinzā ŧiɣməsŧ iřəs aqəmmum iđammən iɣəss aman šš isəm
Coptic ia ma'aje ša šol, najhe las ro snof kas šēn mou wōm ran
Proto-Semitic[18] *ʕayn- *ʔuḏn- *ʔanp- *šinn- *lišān- *dam- *ʕaṯ̣m- *ʕiṣ̂- *mā̆y- *ʔ-k-l (*šim-)
Proto-Afroasiatic[19] *ʔǐl- *-ʔânxʷ- *sǐn-/*sǎn- 'tip, point' *-lis’- 'to lick' *âf- *dîm-/*dâm- *k’os- *ɣǎ *âm-; *akʷ’- *-mǎaʕ-; *-iit-; *-kʷ’-̌ *sǔm-/*sǐm-

Bibliography

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  • 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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

See also

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References

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  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.