The Northern Eastern Sudanic, Eastern k Sudanic, Ek Sudanic, NNT or Astaboran languages may form a primary division of the proposed Eastern Sudanic family. They are characterised by having a /k/ in the first person singular pronoun "I/me", as opposed to the Southern Eastern Sudanic languages, which have an /n/. Nyima has yet to be conclusively linked to the other languages, and would appear to be the closest relative of Ek Sudanic rather than Ek Sudanic proper.
| Northern Eastern Sudanic | |
|---|---|
| Astaboran | |
| (undemonstrated) | |
| Geographic distribution | Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt, Chad |
| Linguistic classification | Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Northern Eastern Sudanic |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None |
The most well-known language of this group is Nubian. According to Claude Rilly, the ancient Meroitic language appears on limited evidence to be closely related to the languages of this group.
A reconstruction of Proto-Northern Eastern Sudanic has also been proposed by Rilly (2010).[1]
Internal classification
editRilly (2009:2)[2] provides the following internal structure for the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages.
External relationships
editBased on morphological evidence such as tripartite number marking on nominals, Roger Blench (2021) suggests that the Maban languages may be closely related.[3]
See also
edit
- List of Northern Eastern Sudanic reconstructions (Wiktionary)
References
edit- ^ Rilly, Claude (2010). Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique (in French). Leuven: Peeters Publishers. pp. 347–349. ISBN 978-9042922372.
- ^ Rilly, Claude (June 4–7, 2009). From the Yellow Nile to the Blue Nile: The quest for water and the diffusion of Northern East Sudanic languages from the fourth to the first millennia BCE. ECAS 2009 (3rd European Conference on African Studies). Leipzig.
{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Blench, Roger. 2021. The Maban languages and their place within Nilo-Saharan.
- Bender, M. L. (2000). "Nilo-Saharan". In Heine, Bernd; Nurse, Derek (eds.). African Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
- Starostin, George (2015). "The Eastern Sudanic hypothesis tested through lexicostatistics: current state of affairs". Draft 1.0.
- Starostin, George (2015). Jazyki Afriki. Opyt postrojenija leksikostatističeskoj klassifikacii. Tom II. Vostočnosudanskije jazyki Языки Африки. Опыт построения лексикостатистической классификации. Том II. Восточносуданские языки [The Languages of Africa. The experience of building a lexiostatistical classification.] (in Russian). Vol. II: The Eastern Sudanic Languages. Moscow: Languages of Slavic culture. ISBN 9785457890718.