Northern Songhay languages

Northern Songhay is the smaller of the two branches of the Songhay languages. It is a group of heavily Berber-influenced dialects spoken in scattered oases of the Sahara.

Northern Songhay
Geographic
distribution
scattered oases in Niger, Mali, Algeria
Linguistic classificationNilo-Saharan?
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottolognort2823

Languages

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The nomadic varieties include Tihishit in central Niger around Mazababou (with two dialects, Tagdal and Tabarog) and Tadaksahak (or Dawsahak) spoken around Ménaka northeast of Gao (Heath 1999:xv). The sedentary varieties include Tasawaq in northern Niger (with two dialects, Ingelsi in In-Gall and the extinct Emghedeshie of Agadez) and Korandje far to the north, 150 km east of the AlgerianMoroccan border at Tabelbala.

Classification

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The main outside influence on all of these except on Korandje is the Tamasheq language cluster. Korandje appears to be influenced more by Northern and Western Berber; in turn, the neighboring Northern Berber language Taznatit shows a few traces of Songhay influence. Since the Berber influence in these languages extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, Northern Songhay are sometimes viewed as mixed languages (Alidou & Wolff 2001).

References

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  • Alidou, Husseina & Ekkehardt Wolff. 2001. "On the Non-Linear Ancestry of Tasawaq (Niger), or: How “Mixed” Can a Language Be?" in ed. Derek Nurse, Historical Language Contact in Africa, Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
  • Heath, Jeffrey. 1999. A grammar of Koyraboro (Koroboro) Senni: the Songhay of Gao. Köln: Köppe. 402 pp