Where is songhai spoken

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Oxford Reference. Linguistic diversity What for? What issues? Note however that most mentions are those in the singular: Songhay. Area : Songhay is spoken in a vast area covering the middle reaches of the Niger River, from Benin through to Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, as well as in the desert regions of southern Sahara, in Niger.

A few speakers are also found in Nigeria, speakers of Dendi in the city of Salaga, Ghana, as well as in a few villages of Sudan and around the Tabelbala oasis, in southwestern Algeria.

Songhay was at its height at the end of the Middle Ages 1stth century as the Songhay Empire, capital Gao, was expanding. Classification : There is no consensus on the classification of the Songhay set. According to the Greenberg classification , Songhay or Songhays belongs to the Nilo-Saharian language family. Studies have been carried out to draw Songhay closer to other language families, including the Mande languages.

There is no consensus regarding the exact number of these languages, or their names, or the boundaries separating Songhay dialects from Songhay languages. Inner differences, particularly between the Southern Songhay group and the Northern Songhay group, or even within the Northern group itself, are too strong for them to be considered as mere variants of one and the same language.

However, a consensual inner classification of the Songhay set could be considered organizing as follows:. Southern Songhay. The marked values are subjunctive, imperfective, and negative. Thus, a zero slot is interpreted as indicative, perfective, positive.

Northern Songhay is also SVO. Nominal modifiers, like adjectives, demonstratives and numerals, follow the head-noun but possessors precede it.

All Songhay languages use postpositions. It serves to indicate without ambiguity that the subject of a dependent clause is identical to the subject of the main clause. Humburi Senni numerals are shown first with tones , followed by those of Koyra Chiini which lacks tones :.

Mouton de Gruyter University of Texas SELAF Songhay Languages. Address comments and questions to: gutman37 yahoo. Papuan Languages.

Het Songhai is taalkundig raadselachtig, aangezien het geen echte verwanten heeft in de regio. De talengroepen wordt meestal gezien als deel van de Nilo-Saharaanse talen, waarvan het merendeel gesproken wordt ten oosten van het Tsjaadmeer. No entanto atualmente o songai tem sido escrito em alfabeto latino.

In particular, they are spoken in the cities of Timbuktu, Niamey and Gao. They have been widely used as a lingua franca in that region ever since the era of the Songhai Empire. In Mali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao east of Timbuktu as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education.