World Language Map

Where is Naba spoken?

Naba is a Central Sudanic language, spoken in Chad. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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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.

Where Naba is spoken

Naba is spoken in one country: Chad.

Country
Chad

Naba 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 Naba?

Wikidata gives about 280,000 speakers (A paper on an aspect of Bilala, 2006). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Naba sits in the language family tree

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

  1. Central Sudanic
  2. Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi
  3. SBB Occidental
  4. Nuclear SBB Occidental
  5. Saraic
  6. Bagirmic
  7. Morom-Jaya-Naba
  8. Naba-Berakou
  9. Naba

More about Naba

Codes: ISO 639-3 mne, Glottolog naba1253. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Naba

Where is Naba spoken?

Naba is spoken in Chad. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Naba?

Wikidata gives about 280,000 speakers (A paper on an aspect of Bilala, 2006). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Naba in?

Glottolog places Naba in the Central Sudanic family, in the branch Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi, SBB Occidental, Nuclear SBB Occidental, Saraic, Bagirmic, Morom-Jaya-Naba and Naba-Berakou.

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