Chadic languages

Chadic
Geographic
distribution:
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon
Linguistic classification:

Afro-Asiatic

  • Chadic
Subdivisions:
ISO 639-5: cdc
Glottolog: chad1250[1]
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The Chadic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family that is spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, Central African Republic and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland West Africa.

Composition

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; Blench (2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic.[2]

(A) the Hausa, Ron, Bole, and Angas languages; and
(B) the Bade, Warji, and Zaar languages.
(A) the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups;
(B) the Buduma and Musgu languages; and
(C) Gidar
(A) the Tumak, Nancere, and Kera languages; and
(B) the Dangaléat, Mukulu, and Sokoro languages
A chart of the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic languages.

Origin

Main Chadic-speaking peoples in Nigeria.
Hausa-speaking areas in Nigeria and Niger.

Several modern genetic studies of Chadic speaking groups in the northern Cameroon region have observed high frequencies of the Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b in these populations (specifically, of R1b's R-V88 variant). This paternal marker is common in parts of West Eurasia, but otherwise rare in Africa. Cruciani et al. (2010) thus propose that the Proto-Chadic speakers during the mid-Holocene (~7,000 years ago) migrated from the Levant to the Central Sahara, and from there settled in the Lake Chad Basin.[3]

Bibliography

References

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Chadic". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List (ms)
  3. Cruciani, F; Trombetta, B; Sellitto, D; Massaia, A; Destro-Bisol, G; Watson, E; Beraud Colomb, E; Dugoujon, JM; Moral, P; Scozzari, R (2010). "Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages". European Journal of Human Genetics 18 (7): 800–7. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2009.231. PMC 2987365. PMID 20051990.

External links

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