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Adamawa-ubangi LanguagesThe Adamawa-Ubangi languages are spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic, by a total of about 12 million people. The group belongs to the Niger-Congo languages. It is divided into two groups: The group was first set up by Joseph H. Greenberg in 1963, under the name Adamawa-Eastern. Within Niger-Congo, its closest affiliation is widely believed to be with Gur, although the internal classification of Niger-Congo still has many uncertainties. The Adamawa languages are among the least studied in Africa, and include many endangered languages; by far the largest of the nearly one hundred small Adamawa languages is Mumuye, at 400,000 speakers. A couple of unclassified languages - notably Laal and Jalaa - are found along their fringes. Ubangian languages, while nearly as numerous, are somewhat better studied; one in particular, Sango, has (in creolized form) become a major trade language of central Africa. Adamawa-Ubangi languages often have partial vowel harmony, involving restrictions on the co-occurrence of vowels in a word. Noun class systems are widespread, although some languages have lost them. Some of the subject pronouns (Boyd 1989) seem to have originally been along the lines of: - "I": *mi or *ma
- "you (sg.)": *mo
- "you (pl.): *u, *ui, *i (+n?)
The third person pronouns vary widely. In possessive constructions, the possessed typically precedes the possessor, and sentence order is usually Subject Verb Object. Links *
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