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Kadu languages
Small language family of southern Sudan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Kadu languages, also known as Kadugli–Krongo or Tumtum, are a small language family of the Kordofanian geographic grouping, once included in Niger–Congo. However, since Thilo Schadeberg (1981), Kadu is widely seen as Nilo-Saharan. Evidence for a Niger-Congo affiliation is rejected, and a Nilo-Saharan relationship is controversial. A conservative classification would treat the Kadu languages as an independent family.[1]
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Classification
Blench (2006) notes that Kadu languages share similarities with multiple African language phyla, including Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan, suggesting a complex history of linguistic convergence and contact.[2] However, more recently, Blench states that Kadu is almost certainly Nilo-Saharan, with its closest relationship being with Eastern Sudanic.[3][4]
Like the Nilotic, Surmic, and Kuliak languages, Kadu languages have verb-initial word order. However, most other languages of the Nuba Mountains, Darfur, and the Sudan-Ethiopia border region have verb-final word order.[5]
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Branches
There are three branches:
Classification
Hall & Hall (2004),[6] based on Schadeberg (1987),[7] classify the languages as follows.
Kadu | |
Dafalla (2000) compares 179 cognates in Kadugli, Kamda, Kanga, Katcha, Keiga, Kufa, Miri, Shororo-Kursi, and Tulishi. Dafalla's (2000) results are similarly to those of Schadeberg (1989).
Reconstructions
Some Kadu quasi-reconstructions by Blench (2006):[8]
Comparative vocabulary
Summarize
Perspective
Sample basic vocabulary for Kadu languages:[9]
Numerals
Comparison of numerals in individual languages:[10]
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See also
- Kadu word lists (Wiktionary)
Further reading
- Blench, Roger. 2006. The Kadu Languages and Their Affiliation: between Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic. Insights into Nilo-Saharan Language, History, and Culture. Al-Amin Abu-Manga, L. Gilley & A. Storch eds. 101–127. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
- Blench, Roger (2019). "Shabo and Kadu: Two Orphan Branches of Nilo-Saharan". 14th Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Department of African Studies, University of Vienna.
- Stevenson, Roland; Roger Blench (ed). Comparative Kadu Datasheets.
- Reh, Mechthild. 1983. Die Krongo-Sprache (nììnò mó-dì): Beschreibung, Texte, Wörterverzeichnis. (Kölner Beiträge zur Afrikanistik, 12.) Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
- Schadeberg, Thilo. 1994. Comparative Kadu Wordlists. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 40:11–48. University of Cologne.
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Notes and references
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