Eastern Sudanic languages
| Eastern Sudanic | |
|---|---|
| (probable) | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo (DRC) |
| Linguistic classification: |
Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Subdivisions: |
|
| ISO 639-5: | |
| Glottolog: | None |
Eastern Sudanic languages:
* Group k (orange) * Group n (yellow) |
|
In most classifications, the Eastern Sudanic languages are a group of nine families of languages that may constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania.
Nubian (and possibly Meroitic) gives Eastern Sudanic some of the earliest written attestations of African languages. However, the largest branch by far is Nilotic, spread by extensive and comparatively recent conquests throughout East Africa. Before the spread of Nilotic, Eastern Sudanic was centered in present-day Sudan. The name "East Sudanic" refers to the eastern part of the region of Sudan where the country of Sudan is located, and contrasts with Central Sudanic and West Sudanic (modern Mande, in the Niger–Congo family).
Lionel Bender (1980) proposes several Eastern Sudanic isoglosses (defining words), such as *kutuk "mouth", *(ko)TVS-(Vg) "three", and *ku-lug-ut or *kVl(t) "fish".
In older classifications, such as that of Meinhof (1911), the term was used for the eastern Sudanic languages, largely equivalent to modern Nilo-Saharan sans Nilotic, which is the largest constituent of modern Eastern Sudanic.
Glottolog (2013) does not accept that a relationship has been demonstrated between any of the nine families of Eastern Sudanic, nor their connection to a broader Nilo-Saharan phylum.
There are two recent classifications of East Sudanic languages. The one followed by other historical linguists is Bender 2000.
Bender assigns the languages into two branches, depending on whether the 1sg pronoun ("I") has a /k/ or an /n/:
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