World Language Map

Nilotic languages map

55 Nilotic languages are on the map, most of them in South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda. It divides into 3 main branches, the largest being Western Nilotic (22 languages). The best-known members include Luo (Kenya and Tanzania), Lango (Uganda) and Shilluk. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

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.

The Nilotic family at a glance

  • 55languages
  • 31drawn as areas
  • 24shown as points
  • 3main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Nilotic alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Nilotic languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Luo (Kenya and Tanzania) spoken? (about 3 million speakers)
  2. Where is Lango (Uganda) spoken? (about 2.1 million speakers)
  3. Where is Shilluk spoken? (about 2 million speakers)
  4. Where is Acoli spoken? (about 1.2 million speakers)
  5. Where is Nuer spoken? (about 900,000 speakers)
  6. Where is Bari spoken? (about 480,000 speakers)
  7. Where is Adhola spoken? (about 480,000 speakers)
  8. Where is Otuho spoken? (about 310,000 speakers)
  9. Where is Anuak spoken? (about 140,000 speakers)

Branches of Nilotic

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Western Nilotic (22)
  • Eastern Nilotic (17)
  • Southern Nilotic (16)

Where Nilotic languages are spoken

Countries with the most Nilotic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 55 Nilotic languages, A to Z

Questions about Nilotic languages

How many Nilotic languages are there?

55 living Nilotic languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 3 main branches, the biggest being Western Nilotic (22 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Nilotic languages spoken?

South Sudan (31), Kenya (19), Uganda (17), Sudan (8), Tanzania (8) and Ethiopia (6) have the most Nilotic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Nilotic languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Luo (Kenya and Tanzania) (about 3 million), Lango (Uganda) (about 2.1 million) and Shilluk (about 2 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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