Northern Songhay languages explained

Northern Songhay
Region:scattered oases in Niger, Mali, Algeria
Familycolor:Nilo-Saharan
Fam2:Songhay
Child1:Tadaksahak
Child2:Tagdal (Tagdal, Tabarog)
Child3:Tasawaq
Child4:Korandje
Glotto:nort2823
Glottorefname:Northern Songhay

Northern Songhay is the smaller of the two branches of the Songhay languages. It is a group of heavily Berber-influenced dialects spoken in scattered oases of the Sahara.

Languages

The nomadic varieties include Tihishit in central Niger around Mazababou (with two dialects, Tagdal and Tabarog) and Tadaksahak (or Dawsahak) spoken around Ménaka northeast of Gao (Heath 1999:xv). The sedentary varieties include Tasawaq in northern Niger (with two dialects, Ingelsi in In-Gall and the extinct Emghedeshie of Agadez) and Korandje far to the north, 150 km east of the Algerian–Moroccan border at Tabelbala.

Classification

The main outside influence on all of these except on Korandje is the Tamasheq language cluster. Korandje appears to be influenced more by Northern and Western Berber; in turn, the neighboring Northern Berber language Taznatit shows a few traces of Songhay influence. Since the Berber influence in these languages extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, Northern Songhay are sometimes viewed as mixed languages (Alidou & Wolff 2001).

References