World Language Map

Central Sudanic languages map

60 Central Sudanic languages are on the map, most of them in Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. It divides into 5 main branches, the largest being Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (36 languages). The best-known members include Naba, Ngiti and Omi. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Central Sudanic family at a glance

  • 60languages
  • 36drawn as areas
  • 24shown as points
  • 5main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Central Sudanic alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Central Sudanic languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Naba spoken? (about 280,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Ngiti spoken? (about 100,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Omi spoken? (about 91,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Bagirmi spoken? (about 45,000 speakers)
  5. Where is Lendu spoken? (about 26,000 speakers)
  6. Where is Yulu-Binga spoken? (about 13,000 speakers)

Branches of Central Sudanic

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (36)
  • Moru-Madi (10)
  • Membi-Mangbutu-Efe (8)
  • Lenduic (3)
  • Mangbetu-Asua (3)

Where Central Sudanic languages are spoken

Countries with the most Central Sudanic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 60 Central Sudanic languages, A to Z

Questions about Central Sudanic languages

How many Central Sudanic languages are there?

60 living Central Sudanic languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 5 main branches, the biggest being Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi (36 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Central Sudanic languages spoken?

Chad (24), Democratic Republic of the Congo (23), South Sudan (17), Central African Republic (17), Uganda (9) and Sudan (6) have the most Central Sudanic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Central Sudanic languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Naba (about 280,000), Ngiti (about 100,000) and Omi (about 91,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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