World Language Map

Where is Birwa spoken?

Birwa is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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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.

Where Birwa is spoken

Birwa is spoken in 3 countries: Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Country
Botswana
South Africa
Zimbabwe

Birwa has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Birwa?

Wikidata holds no speaker count for this language.

Status: Threatened. Glottolog lists it as threatened: it is still spoken by all generations, but there are signs that the number of speakers is falling.

Where Birwa sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Birwa as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Atlantic-Congo
  2. Volta-Congo
  3. Benue-Congo
  4. Bantoid
  5. Southern Bantoid
  6. Narrow Bantu
  7. East Bantu
  8. Southern Bantu
  9. Nuclear Southern Bantu
  10. Dimsuffix Southern Bantu
  11. Sotho-Tswana (S.30)
  12. Northern Sotho
  13. Birwa

More about Birwa

Codes: ISO 639-3 brl, Glottolog birw1238. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Birwa

Where is Birwa spoken?

Birwa is spoken in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

Which language family is Birwa in?

Glottolog places Birwa in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, East Bantu, Southern Bantu, Nuclear Southern Bantu, Dimsuffix Southern Bantu, Sotho-Tswana (S.30) and Northern Sotho.

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