Linguistic classification: Afro-Asiatic
Chadic Glottolog: chad1250 | ISO 639-5: cdc | |
 | ||
Geographic
distribution: Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon Subdivisions: Biu–Mandara
East Chadic
Masa
West Chadic | ||
The Chadic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family that is spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, Central African Republic and northern Cameroon. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland West Africa.
Contents
Composition
Newman (1977) classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature. Further subbranching, however, has not been as robust; Blench (2006), for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic.
Origin
Several modern genetic studies of Chadic speaking groups in the northern Cameroon region have observed high frequencies of the Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b in these populations (specifically, of R1b's R-V88 variant). This paternal marker is common in parts of West Eurasia, but otherwise rare in Africa. Cruciani et al. (2010) thus propose that the Proto-Chadic speakers during the mid-Holocene (~7,000 years ago) migrated from the Levant to the Central Sahara, and from there settled in the Lake Chad Basin.