Geographic
distribution Nuba Hills, Sudan | Subdivisions Talodi
Heiban | |
 | ||
Linguistic classification Niger–Congo
Atlantic–Congo
Talodi–Heiban Glottolog None
narr1279 (Talodi)
heib1242 (Heiban) | ||
The Talodi–Heiban languages are a branch of the Niger–Congo family spoken in the Nuba Hills of Sudan. The Talodi languages and Heiban languages are clearly distinct but relatively closely related.
Classification
Talodi and Heiban had each constituted a group of the Kordofanian branch of Niger–Congo that was posited by Joseph Greenberg (1963); Talodi has also called Talodi–Masakin, and Heiban has also been called Koalib or Koalib–Moro. Roger Blench notes that the Talodi and Heiban families have the noun-class systems characteristic of the Atlantic–Congo core of Niger–Congo, but that the Katla languages (another putative branch of Kordofanian) have no trace of ever having had such a system, whereas the Kadu languages and some of the Rashad languages appear to have acquired noun classes as part of a Sprachbund, rather than having inherited them. He concludes that the Kordofanian languages do not form a genealogical group, but that Talodi–Heiban is core Niger–Congo, whereas Katla and Rashad form a peripheral branch (or perhaps branches) along the lines of Mande. The Kadu languages may be Nilo-Saharan.
Lafofa (Tegem), sometimes classified as a divergent Talodi language, has a different set of cognates with other Niger–Congo and has been placed in its own branch of Niger–Congo.