World Language Map

Songhay languages map

10 Songhay languages are on the map, most of them in Mali, Niger and Nigeria. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Northwest Songhay (5 languages). The best-known members include Tadaksahak, Dendi (Benin) and Tagdal. 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 Songhay family at a glance

  • 10languages
  • 6drawn as areas
  • 4shown as points
  • 2main branches

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

Biggest Songhay languages

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

  1. Where is Tadaksahak spoken? (about 100,000 speakers)
  2. Where is Dendi (Benin) spoken? (about 32,000 speakers)
  3. Where is Tagdal spoken? (about 27,000 speakers)

Branches of Songhay

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Northwest Songhay (5)
  • Eastern Songhay (5)

Where Songhay languages are spoken

Countries with the most Songhay languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 10 Songhay languages, A to Z

Questions about Songhay languages

How many Songhay languages are there?

10 living Songhay languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Northwest Songhay (5 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Songhay languages spoken?

Mali (6), Niger (5), Nigeria (4), Burkina Faso (2), Algeria (2) and Mauritania (1) have the most Songhay languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Songhay languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Tadaksahak (about 100,000), Dendi (Benin) (about 32,000) and Tagdal (about 27,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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