The Adamawa languages are a putative family of languages scattered across the Adamawa Plateau in central Africa, in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. They are traditionally classified as one branch of the Adamawa-Ubangi family of Niger-Congo languages. They are among the least studied languages in Africa, and include many endangered languages; by far the largest of the nearly one hundred small Adamawa languages is Mumuye, with 400,000 speakers. A couple of unclassified languages - notably Laal and Jalaa - are found along the fringes of the Adamawa area. Boyd (1989) classified them as follows:
- Waja-Jen
- Tula-Wiyaa (or Waja)
- Bikwin-Jen (or Jen)
- Baa (or, confusingly, Kwa)
- Bəna-Mboi (or Yungur)
- Longuda
- Leko-Nimbari
- Mumuye-Yendang
- Leko
- Duru
- Nimbari
- Mbum-Day
- Nyimwom (or Kam)
- Unclassified Adamawa languages
(The Fali and Dakoid languages were removed by Boyd 1989.) More recently, Blench has posited that the Adamawa languages are a geographic grouping, not a linguistic family, and has broken them up in his Savannas family.
External links
- List of Adamawa languages - Blench
- Tula-Wiyaa languages - Blench
- Leeko group - Blench
- The Perema (Wom) language of northeastern Nigeria: classification, phonology and noun morphology (PDF) by Roger M. Blench, 2000. Mallam Dendo, Cambridge.
- A rapid appraisal survey of Gbete (PDF) by Jason Diller & Kari Jordan-Diller, 2002. SIL Electronic Survey Reports SILESR 2002-050.
- A sociolinguistic survey of the Mambay language of Chad and Cameroon (PDF) by Cameron Hamm, 2002. SIL Electronic Survey Reports SILESR 2002-039.
- Rapid appraisal and lexicostatistical analysis surveys of Dama, Mono, Pam, Ndai and Oblo (PDF) by Michael & Charlene Ayotte, 2002. SIL Electronic Survey Reports SILESR 2002-048.
- Karang - SIL-Cameroon
- SIL-Cameroon bibliography
- Langue kim
- Langue tupuri
- Vocabulaires comparés des instruments aratoires dans le Nord-Cameroun, Tourneaux
