World Language Map

Where is Kanu spoken?

Kanu is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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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 Kanu is spoken

Kanu is spoken in one country: the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Country
Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kanu has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Kanu?

Wikidata holds no speaker count for this language.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Kanu sits in the language family tree

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

  1. Atlantic-Congo
  2. Volta-Congo
  3. Benue-Congo
  4. Bantoid
  5. Southern Bantoid
  6. Narrow Bantu
  7. East Bantu
  8. Greater Lega
  9. Mituku-Lega
  10. Lega
  11. Western Lega
  12. Kanu

Related languages

Other languages in the Western Lega group:

More about Kanu

Codes: ISO 639-3 khx, Glottolog kanu1278. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Kanu

Where is Kanu spoken?

Kanu is spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

Which language family is Kanu in?

Glottolog places Kanu in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, East Bantu, Greater Lega, Mituku-Lega, Lega and Western Lega.

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