Chadic languages

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.[1] Kujargé has been added from Blench (2008), who suggests Kujargé may have split off before the breakup of Proto-Chadic and then subsequently became influenced by 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.

• West Chadic. Two branches, which include

(A) the Hausa, Ron, Bole, and Angas languages; and

(B) the Bade, Warji, and Zaar languages.

• Biu–Mandara (Central Chadic). Three branches, which include

(A) the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups;

(B) the Buduma and Musgu languages; and

(C) Gidar

• East Chadic. Two branches, which include

(A) the Tumak, Nancere, and Kera languages; and

(B) the Dangaléat, Mukulu, and Sokoro languages

• Masa
• ? Kujargé

A chart of the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic languages.

Main Chadic-speaking peoples in Nigeria.

Hausa-speaking areas in Nigeria and Niger.

Modern genetic studies of Northwestern Cameroonian Chadic-speaking populations have observed high frequencies of the Y-chromosome Haplogroup R1b in these populations (the R1b-V88[3] variant). This paternal marker is common in parts of West Eurasia, but otherwise rare in Africa. Cruciani et al. (2010) thus proposed 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.[4]

D'Atanasio et al. (2018) claim that R1b-V88 originated in Europe about 12,000 years ago and crossed to North Africa by about 8000 years ago; it may formerly have been common in southern Europe, where it has since been replaced by waves of other haplogroups, leaving remnant subclades almost exclusively in Sardinia. It first radiated within Africa likely between 7 and 8 000 years ago – at the same time as trans-Saharan expansions within the unrelated haplogroups E-M2 and A-M13 – possibly due to population growth allowed by humid conditions and the adoption of livestock herding in the Sahara. R1b-V1589, the main subclade within R1b-V88, underwent a further expansion around 5500 years ago, likely in the Lake Chad Basin region, from which some lines recrossed the Sahara to North Africa.[5][6]

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.[7]

Although Adamawa languages are spoken adjacently to Chadic languages, interaction between Chadic and Adamawa is limited.[8]

Pronouns in Proto-Chadic, as compared to pronouns in Proto-Afroasiatic (Vossen & Dimmendaal 2020:351):[9]

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

• 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 Langage 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 dataset derived from Kraft's "Chadic Wordlists" from 1981. Geneva: Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3534953.

• Proto-Chadic reconstructions (Wiktionary)