Sudanic languages
Sudan languages is an obsolete term for all African languages , which are spoken in the Sahel region of Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west.
The term was used by the early to mid 20th century. The corresponding populations were designated as Sudan negroes, a term which still remained common until at least the late 1960s. According to current knowledge, the so-called Sudan languages do not form a genetic unit. They belong rather to the Niger - Congo languages , Nilo-Saharan languages and the Afro-Asiatic languages.
The Sudan languages were by Carl Meinhof genus loose and nominally classless African languages , which differed from the Bantu languages with noun class system and the Hamitic languages with gender system. Diedrich Westermann but had already claimed the relationship of westsudanischen branch for the Bantu languages.
Sudan languages according to Meinhof
Carl Meinhof subsumed as a student of the Bantu languages , all languages that had no marked noun class system and were not Hamitic or Semitic, among the group of the Sudan languages. The concept of the Sudan languages must also be seen in connection with the idea of the Hamitic race.
Were not enough, the wrong by today's linguistic classification model for the classification of languages , Carl Meinhof resorted to racial criteria. In contrast to the Negroid population, which should speak the Sudan languages , the Hamites called " athiopide contact race" should talk to the " superior" inflecting " Hamit languages " with Genus system. This led for example to the erroneous classification of Maa and Fulfulde. Because their spokesman, the Maasai and Fulbe, greater grown or were light-skinned, were their languages in the absence of useful linguistic methods, the " Hamitic languages " slammed, although these to the Nilo-Saharan and Niger - Congo language family, which according to former usage Sudan languages were mentioned belong. That should be " culture- bearing role and superiority of the Hamites " or higher. On the other hand, figured Meinof Hausa to the Sudan languages , which is part of the Afro-Asiatic ( hamitosemitischen ) language family according to what we know today as Chadian language.
Westermann's research and Klingenheben
Diedrich Westermann, a pupil of Carl Meinhof, led comparative linguistic research on the Sudan languages during the first half of the 20th century by and founded in 1911 the division between East and West Sudanese languages , which is approximately comparable to the present distinction between Niger -Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages . His collaboration with Hermann Baumann in 1927 was devoted to the historical reconstruction of the western Sudanese language branch. He compared his findings about the Ursudanische (which no longer scientifically relevant original language of Sudan languages ) with the proto- Bantu, the Carl Meinhof had worked out. Westermann but it failed to draw the obvious conclusion that there was a language- genetic relationship between the proto- North Sudan and the Proto - Bantu. French linguist Maurice Delafosse and Lilias Homburger, which were not affected by the theory that the noun class system differs Bantu and Sudanese languages , expressed quite clearly about the unity between Sudanese and Bantu languages , mainly on the basis lexicostatistical data. Homburger, for example, noted in their comparative work of 1929 Noms the parties du corps dans les langues Négro - Africa Ines that some German Africanists (...) have proposed a Bantu group and a group of the Sudan languages , and the relevant scientists late to come to recognize the unity of Bantu Sundanese. Only in 1935 put Westermann in his work, character and classification of Sudan languages definitively the relationship between Bantu languages and Western Sudanese languages dar. But he held on to a "common stance " of the Sudan languages.
August Klingenheben addressed in the 1930s with Fulfulde. Through its comprehensive description of the speaker stand and the complicated system of prefix and Suffixklassen he solves the Fulfulde from the family of Hamitic languages and arranges it in the group of West Atlantic languages. Due to the dissolution of Fuldfulde from the Hamitic languages , the concept of the Sudan languages less and less suitable for describing nichthamitische languages and non- Bantu languages of the Sahel linguistically.
The object of the Sudan languages by Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg moved into the western Sudanese languages in the Niger - Congo languages and renamed it to Volta - Congo languages . He treated the Eastern Sudan as a distinct languages of the Western Sudan / Niger -Congo language family, which he introduced under the name Nilo-Saharan language family.
Despite the lack of linguistic foundation, the group of Sudan languages will continue to be used today as a geographical term for the languages in the Sahel belt. An example is the Diercke World Atlas by Westermann publishing house, which is often used as a school atlas.
The Sudan languages can be very different and are divided into:
- Western Sudan languages : Mande languages
- Semibantu
- Togo residual languages
- Cross River languages
- Platoide languages
- Nupoide languages
- Edoide languages
- Idomoide languages
- Defoide languages
- Igboide languages
- Kainji languages
- Central Sudan languages : Chad languages
- Eastern Sudan languages : Nilotic languages
- Hamito - Nilotic languages