The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 196 languages
Composition
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.
[Blench, 2006. The Afro-Asiatic Languages: Classification and Reference List (ms)] 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).
[Blench, Roger. 2008. Links between Cushitic, Omotic, Chadic and the position of Kujarge . 5th International Conference of Cushitic and Omotic languages.]
Loanwords
Chadic languages contain many Nilo-Saharan loanwords from either the Songhay or
Maban languages branches, pointing to early contact between Chadic and Nilo-Saharan speakers as Chadic was migrating west.
Although Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited.[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.]
Pronouns
Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351):
[Vossen, Rainer and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.). 2020. The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.]
|
| *i ~ *yi |
| *ku, *ka |
| *kim |
| *si, *isi |
| |
| (*-na ~ *-nu ~ *-ni) ? |
| *kuuna |
| *su ~ *usu |
Comparative vocabulary
Sample basic vocabulary in different Chadic branches listed in order from west to east, with reconstructions of other Afroasiatic branches also given for comparison:
|
| *s₃m |
| suna |
| *sum |
| *(yì)sûm(-s₃) |
| suŋ |
| *ɬɨmɨɗʸ |
| *sem |
| rúwà |
| Other Afroasiatic branches |
| *sim-/*sum- |
| |
| isəm |
| ran |
| (*šim-) |
| *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.
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Lukas, Johannes (1936) 'The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa.' Africa, 9, 332–349.
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Lukas, Johannes. Zentralsudanische Studien, Hamburg 1937;
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Newman, Paul (1977) 'Chadic classification and reconstructions.' Afroasiatic Linguistics 5, 1, 1–42.
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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.
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Newman, Paul (1980) The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
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Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Kiyoshi Shimizu: Chadic lexical roots. Reimer, Berlin 1981.
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Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Dymitr Ibriszimow: Chadic lexical roots. 2 volumes. Reimer, Berlin 1994
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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
See also
