World Language Map

Where is Sumayela Ndebele spoken?

Sumayela Ndebele (IsiNdebele) is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in South Africa. 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 Sumayela Ndebele is spoken

Sumayela Ndebele is spoken in one country: South Africa.

Country
South Africa

Sumayela Ndebele 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 Sumayela Ndebele?

Wikidata gives about 640,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

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 Sumayela Ndebele sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Sumayela Ndebele 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. Nguni-Tsonga-Copi
  12. Nguni (S.40)
  13. Nuclear Nguni
  14. Sumayela Ndebele

More about Sumayela Ndebele

Codes: Glottolog sout2808. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Sumayela Ndebele

Where is Sumayela Ndebele spoken?

Sumayela Ndebele is spoken in South Africa. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Sumayela Ndebele?

Wikidata gives about 640,000 speakers (Wikidata, with no source given). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Sumayela Ndebele in?

Glottolog places Sumayela Ndebele 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, Nguni-Tsonga-Copi, Nguni (S.40) and Nuclear Nguni.

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