Оңтүстік Суданның шағын тілдер тобы

Small language family of southern Sudan

The Kadu languages, also known as Kadugli–Krongo or Tumtum, are a small language family of the Kordofanian geographic grouping, once included in Niger–Congo. However, since Thilo Schadeberg (1981), Kadu is widely seen as Nilo Saharan. Evidence for a Niger Congo affiliation is rejected, and a Nilo Saharan relationship is controversial. A conservative classification would treat the Kadu languages as an independent family.

Blench (2006) notes that Kadu languages share similarities with multiple African language phyla, including Niger Congo and Nilo Saharan, suggesting a complex history of linguistic convergence and contact. However, more recently, Blench states that Kadu is almost certainly Nilo Saharan, with its closest relationship being with Eastern Sudanic. Like the Nilotic, Surmic, and Kuliak languages, Kadu languages have verb initial word order. However, most other languages of the Nuba Mountains, Darfur, and the Sudan Ethiopia border region have verb final word order.

Hall & Hall (2004), based on Schadeberg (1987), classify the languages as follows. Dafalla (2000) compares 179 cognates in Kadugli, Kamda, Kanga, Katcha, Keiga, Kufa, Miri, Shororo Kursi, and Tulishi. Dafalla's (2000) results are similarly to those of Schadeberg (1989).

Dafalla, Rihab Yahia. 2000. A Phonological Comparison of the Katcha Kadugli Language Groups in the Nuba Mountains. M. A. Dissertation, University of Khartoum. Schadeberg, Thilo C. 1981. "The Classification of the Kadugli Language Group". Nilo Saharan, ed. by T. C. Schadeberg and M. Lionel Bender, pp. 291–305. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.