World Language Map

Where is Bole spoken?

Bole is an Afro-Asiatic language, spoken in Nigeria. The outlined area on the map shows where.

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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 Bole is spoken

Bole is spoken in one country: Nigeria.

Country
Nigeria

On the map, Bole is drawn as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007. The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18613195), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks Bole.

How many people speak Bole?

Wikidata holds no speaker count for this language.

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 Bole sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Bole as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Afro-Asiatic
  2. Chadic
  3. West Chadic
  4. West Chadic A
  5. West Chadic A.2-3
  6. West Chadic A.2
  7. Boleic
  8. Nuclear Boleic
  9. Galambu-Bele
  10. Kirfi-Bele
  11. Ngamo-Bele
  12. Bolanci-Bele
  13. Bole

More about Bole

Codes: ISO 639-3 bol, Glottolog nucl1695. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Bole

Where is Bole spoken?

Bole is spoken in Nigeria. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.

Which language family is Bole in?

Glottolog places Bole in the Afro-Asiatic family, in the branch Chadic, West Chadic, West Chadic A, West Chadic A.2-3, West Chadic A.2, Boleic, Nuclear Boleic, Galambu-Bele, Kirfi-Bele, Ngamo-Bele and Bolanci-Bele.

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