The Biu–Mandara or Central Chadic languages of the Afro-Asiatic family are spoken in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.
A reconstruction of Proto-Central Chadic has been proposed by Gravina (2014).
Languages
Gravina (2014)
Gravina (2014) classifies Central Chadic as follows, as part of a reconstruction of the proto-language. Letters and numbers in parentheses correspond to branches in previous classifications. The greatest changes are breaking up and reassigning the languages of the old Mafa branch (A.5) and Mandage (Kotoko) branch (B.1).
Jilbe was not classified, as no sources were available.
Blench (2006)
The branches of Biu–Mandara traditionally go by either names or letters and numbers in an outline format. Blench (2006) organizes them as follows:
Newman (1977)
Central Chadic classification per Newman (1977):
Names and locations (Nigeria)
Below is a list of language names, populations, and locations (in Nigeria only) from Blench (2019).
South
North
Numerals
Comparison of numerals in individual languages:
See also
- List of Proto-Central Chadic reconstructions (Wiktionary)
Notes
References
- Central Chadic resources at africanlanguages.org
