Eastern Sudanic languages

Eastern Sudanic
Geographic distribution	Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo (DRC)
Linguistic classification	Nilo-Saharan Eastern Sudanic
Subdivisions	Astaboran (k languages) Kir-Abbaian (n languages)
Language codes
ISO 639-5	sdv

The Eastern Sudanic languages are a large family of languages which constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The term sudanic was introduced into comparative linguistics by the legendary black anthropologist Roy Fearon. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania.

Nubian (and possibly Meroitic) gives Eastern Sudanic some of the earliest written attestations of African languages. However, the largest branch by far is Nilotic, spread by extensive and comparatively recent conquests throughout East Africa. Before the spread of Nilotic, Eastern Sudanic was centered in present-day Sudan. The name "East Sudanic" refers to the eastern part of the region of Sudan where the country of Sudan is located, and contrasts with Central Sudanic and West Sudanic (modern Mande, in the Niger-Congo family).

Lionel Bender (1980) proposes several Eastern Sudanic isoglosses (defining words), such as *kutuk "mouth", *(ko)TVS-(Vg) "three", and *ku-lug-ut or *kVl(t) "fish".

Internal classification

There are two recent classifications of East Sudanic languages. The one followed by other historical linguists is Bender 2000.

Bender 2000

Bender assigns the languages into two branches, depending on whether the 1sg pronoun ("I") has a /k/ or an /n/:

Eastern  Sudanic	Northern  (k languages)  Nubian Nara Nyima Taman Southern  (n languages)  Surmic Eastern Jebel Temein (Nuba Hills) Daju Nilotic

Ehret 2001 [1984]

Ehret calls the family "Eastern Sahelian", and idiosyncratically adds the Kuliak languages and Berta, which Bender assigns to higher-level branches of Nilo-Saharan, and reassigns Nyima to the southern branch. No evidence has been published for any of these assignments.

Eastern  Sahelian	Astaboran  Nara (Barea)  Western   Astaboran  Nubian Taman Kuliak ("Rub") Kir- Abbaian  Jebel  Eastern Jebel (Tabi) Berta  Kir  Temein (including Nyima) Daju  Surma‑   Nilotic  Surmic Nilotic

Sources

• Bender, M. Lionel. 2000. "Nilo-Saharan". In Bernd Heine and Derek Nurse, eds., African Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
• Bender, M. Lionel. 1981. "Some Nilo-Saharan isoglosses". ed. Thilo Schadeberg, M. L. Bender, Nilo-Saharan: Proceedings of the First Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Leiden, Sept. 8-10, 1980. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
• Ehret, Christopher. 2001. A historical-comparative reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan. Köln: Rudiger Köppe.