World Language Map

Where is Subiya spoken?

Subiya is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The outlined area on the map shows where.

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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 Subiya is spoken

Subiya is spoken in 4 countries: Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Country
Botswana
Namibia
Zambia
Zimbabwe

On the map, Subiya 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 Subiya.

How many people speak Subiya?

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 Subiya sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Subiya 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. Botatwe
  9. Western Botatwe
  10. Machili
  11. Subiya

Related languages

Other languages in the Machili group:

More about Subiya

Codes: ISO 639-3 sbs, Glottolog subi1246. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Subiya

Where is Subiya spoken?

Subiya is spoken in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.

Which language family is Subiya in?

Glottolog places Subiya in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, East Bantu, Botatwe, Western Botatwe and Machili.

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