Central Sudan languages
The Central Sudan languages spoken in Africa are an important branch of the Nilo- Saharan language family . They are named after the large Sudan landscape .
They are spoken in an extensive area between Lake Chad and the Logone Rivers in the west and Lake Albert and the Albert Nile in the east and extend over the states of Cameroon , Chad , Central African Republic , Sudan , South Sudan , the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda .
Ethnologue counts 65 Central Sudan languages and breaks them down as follows:
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West:
- Bongo Bagirmi group (41 languages; including Bagirmi / Barma, Sara / Sar and Ngambay)
- Kresh group (2 languages)
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East:
- Lendu group (3 languages; including Bale / "Lendu")
- Mangbetu group (3 languages; including Mangbetu)
- Mangbutu Reading Group (6 languages)
- Moru Ma'di group (10 languages; including Lugbara)
The largest language is the Lugbara [lgg] with around 1 million speakers in the DR Congo and Uganda, which is also known as "High Lugbara"; The Aringa [luc] with around 590,000 speakers in Uganda is known as "Low Lugbara" .
Central Sudan languages with more than 500,000 speakers are also:
- Bale ("Lendu") [led]: approx. 760,000 in the DR Congo (and Uganda)
- Ngambay [sba]: approx. 750,000 in Chad (and in Cameroon)
- Mangbetu [mdj]: approx. 620,000 in the DR Congo
The Bagirmi speakers were the mainstay of the Bagirmi Empire .
The Central Sudan languages generally have the basic word sequence subject-verb-object (SVO).
literature
- Mairi John Blackings: Ma'di-English - English-Ma'di dictionary . LINCOM Europe, Munich 2000.
- Mairi John Blackings et al. Nigel Fabb: A grammar of Ma'di . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2003.
- Joseph Pasquale Crazzolara: A study of the Logbara (Ma'di) language. Grammar and vocabulary . Oxford University Press, 1960.
- Ernst Kausen: The language families of the world. Part 2: Africa - Indo-Pacific - Australia - America. Buske, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-87548-656-8 , pp. 198-204.
- Thilo C. Schadeberg: The Nilosaharan languages . In: Bernd Heine et al. (Ed.): The languages of Africa . Buske, Hamburg 1981, pp. 277-288.