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The Sudanic Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

N. W. Thomas
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Extract

Under the name of Sudanic or Negro languages are comprehended, according to the generally received terminology, the African tongues which stretch in a broad band across the continent from Cape Verd to the Great Lakes; further north they reach nearly to the Red Sea in isolated instances, and in the south to the confines of the Indian Ocean in the shape of linguistic islets whose affinities are only with difficulty recognizable. To the south of the area stretches the Bantu territory, interspersed with pigmy and Bushmen elements, of whom the latter alone have well-marked forms of speech, while the former appear to speak the tongues of Bantu neighbours, or of Sudanic tribes, who must have been their neighbours at an earlier period but have now been swallowed up in the Bantu flood. South-west of the Bantu we have the Nama languages, often classified as Hamitic.

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of SOAS , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1920 , pp. 107 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1920

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References

page 109 note 1 Sprachen der Hamiten, p. 3.Google Scholar

page 109 note 2 According to Meinhof, however (loc. cit.), Nuba has given up the use of tones; in proof he cites the fact that an interrogative sentence has the same tone as an affirmative one, with, however, a high tone on a suffixed syllable. That is precisely the ordinary rule of toned languages and the proof is invalid.

page 115 note 1 The case of Mosi is exceptional, even in Africa. Biafoda is another example; its original morphology groups it with Fula, so far as treatment of the nouns is concerned. But it has now prefixed to them pronominal affixes of the Coast type, giving rise to forms with what may be called “internal polarity ”.

page 121 note 1 The actual grouping adopted by Struck is given in Zts Kolonialsprachen, ii (1911–1912), 235–53, in the lists of Sudanic roots. Since the lists were published the Kordofan languages have been shown to form, at least one, if not more groups.Google Scholar