 | This articleshould specify the language of its non-English content using{{lang}} or{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used.See why.(November 2025) |
| Songhay | |
|---|---|
| Songhai, Ayneha | |
| Geographic distribution | Niger River valley (Mali,Niger,Algeria,Benin,Burkina Faso,Nigeria); scattered oases (Niger, Mali,Algeria) |
| Ethnicity | Songhai |
| Linguistic classification | Nilo-Saharan?
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Songhay |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 /5 | son |
| Glottolog | song1307 |
 | |
TheSonghay,Songhai orAyneha[2][3] languages ([sõʁaj],[soŋaj] or[soŋoj]) are a group of closely relatedlanguages/dialects centred on the middle stretches of theNiger River in theWest African countries ofMali,Niger,Benin,Burkina Faso andNigeria. In particular, they are spoken in the cities ofTimbuktu,Djenné,Niamey,Gao,Tillaberi,Dosso,Parakou,Kandi,Natitingou,Djougou,Malanville,Gorom-Gorom,In-Gall andTabelbala. They have been widely used as alingua franca in that region ever since the era of theSonghai Empire. InMali, the government has officially adopted the dialect of Gao (east ofTimbuktu) as the dialect to be used as a medium of primary education.[4]
Some Songhay languages have little to nomutual intelligibility between each other. For example,Koyraboro Senni, spoken inGao, is unintelligible to speakers ofZarma inNiger, according toEthnologue. However,Songhoyboro Ciine,[5] Zarma, and Dendi have high mutual intelligibility within Niger.[6]
Forlinguists, a major point of interest in the Songhay languages has been the difficulty of determining theirgenetic affiliation; they are commonly taken to beNilo-Saharan, as defined byJoseph Greenberg in 1963, but this classification remains controversial. LinguistGerrit Dimmendaal (2008) believes that for now it is best considered an independent language family.[7]Roger Blench argues that the Songhay andSaharan languages form a Songhay-Saharan branch with each other within the wider Nilo-Saharan linguistic phylum.[8]
Historically, the nameSonghay was neither an ethnic nor a linguistic designation for all, but a name for the ruling caste of the Songhai Empire which are theSonghai proper. The term used by the natives to address the languages and people collectively isAyneha. Aside from the Songhai proper, some speakers in Mali have also adopted the name Songhay as an ethnic designation,[9] while other Songhay-speaking groups identify themselves with other ethnic terms, such asZarma (Djerma) orIsawaghen (Sawaq).
A few precolonial poems and letters composed in Songhay and written in theArabic script exist in Timbuktu.[10] However, Songhay is currently written in theLatin script.
Researchers classify the Songhay languages into two main branches; Southern and Northern.[11] Southern Songhay is centered on the Niger River.Zarma (Djerma), the most widely spoken Songhay language with two or three million speakers, is a major language of southwesternNiger (downriver from and south of Mali) including in the capital city,Niamey.Koyraboro Senni, with 400,000 speakers, is the language of the town of Gao, the seat of the old Songhai Empire. Koyra Chiini is spoken to its west. The much smaller Northern Songhay is a group of heavilyBerber-influenced dialects spoken in theSahara. Since the Berber influence extends beyond the lexicon into the inflectional morphology, the Northern Songhay languages are sometimes viewed asmixed languages.[12]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Songhay languages" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Diedrich Hermann Westermann, a missionary and linguist, hesitated between assigning it toGur or considering it an isolate, andMaurice Delafosse grouped it withMande. At present, Songhay is normally considered to beNilo-Saharan, followingJoseph Greenberg's 1963 reclassification ofAfrican languages; Greenberg's argument is based on about 70 claimedcognates, includingpronouns.[citation needed] This proposal has been developed further by, in particular,Lionel Bender, who saw it as an independent subfamily of Nilo-Saharan.Roger Blench notes that Songhay shares the definingsingulative–plurative morphology typical of Nilo-Saharan languages. As of 2011, he believes that Songhay is closest to the neighboringSaharan languages and is not divergent.
However, a Nilo-Saharan classification is controversial. Greenberg's argument was subjected to serious criticism by Lacroix, who deemed only about 30 of Greenberg's claimed cognates acceptable, and moreover argued that these held mainly betweenZarma and theSaharan languages,[What about Tagdal, which neighbors Saharan?] thus leading one to suspect them of beingloanwords.[13] Certain Songhay–Mande similarities have long been observed (at least since Westermann), and Mukarovsky (1966), Denis Creissels (1981) andNicolaï (1977, 1984) investigated the possibility of a Mande relationship; Creissels made some 50 comparisons, including many body parts andmorphological suffixes (such as thecausative in-endi), while Nicolaï claimed some 450 similar words as well as some conspicuoustypological traits.[citation needed] However, Nicolaï eventually concluded that this approach was not adequate, and in 1990 proposed a distinctly novel hypothesis: that Songhay is aBerber-basedcreole language, restructured under Mande influence. In support of this he proposed 412 similarities, ranging all the way from basic vocabulary (tasa "liver") to obvious borrowings (anzad "violin",alkaadi "qadi".) Others, such as Gerrit Dimmendaal, were not convinced, and Nicolaï (2003) appears to consider the question of Songhay's origins still open, while arguing against Bender's proposed etymologies.[citation needed]
Greenberg's morphological similarities with Nilo-Saharan include the personal pronounsai (cf.Zaghawaai), 'I',ni (cf.Kanurinyi), 'you (sg.)',yer (e.g. Kanuri-ye), 'we',wor (cf. Kanuri-wi), 'you (pl.)'; relative and adjective formants-ma (e.g. Kanuri-ma) and-ko (cf.Maba-ko), a plural suffix-an (?), a hypothetical plural suffix-r (cf.Teso-r) which he takes to appear in the pronounsyer andwor, intransitive/passive-a (cf.Teso-o).[citation needed]
The most striking of the Mande similarities listed by Creissels are the third person pronounsa sg. (pan-Mandea),i pl. (pan-Mandei ore), the demonstrativeswo "this" (cf. Mandingo,wo) andno "there" (cf. Soninkeno, other Mandena), the negativena (found in a couple of Manding dialects) and negative perfectmana (cf. Mandingmá,máŋ), the subjunctivema (cf. Mandingmáa), the copulati (cf. Bisati, Mandingde/le), the verbal connectiveka (cf. Mandingkà), the suffixes-ri (resultative – cf. Mandinka-ri, Bambara-li process nouns),-ncè (ethnonymic, cf. Soninke-nke, Mandinka-nka),-anta (ordinal, cf. Soninke-ndi, Mandinka-njaŋ...),-anta (resultative participle, cf. Soninke-nte),-endi (causative, cf. Soninke, Mandinka-ndi), and the postpositionra "in" (cf. Mandinglá, Sosora...)[citation needed]
The Songhay languages are considered to be an independent family by Dimmendaal (2011), although he classifiesSaharan as part of Nilo-Saharan.[14]
Songhay is mostly atonal,subject–object–verb (SOV) group of languages, an exception being the divergentKoyra Chiini of Timbuktu, which is non-tonal and usessubject-verb-object word order.
Songhay has a morpheme-ndi which marks either the causative or the agentless passive. Verbs can even take two instances of the morpheme, one for each meaning. Thusŋa-ndi-ndi figuratively translates to "[the rice] was made to be eaten [by someone: causee] [by someone: causer]".[15]
| Proto-Songhay | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Songhay languages |
Below are some Proto-Songhay reconstructions:[8]
| Gloss | Proto-Songhay |
|---|---|
| person | *bòro |
| bird | *kídòw |
| scorpion, mosquito | *(n)děŋ |
| ashes | *bó:sú |
| stone, mountain | *tóndì |
| year | *gí:rí; *mán(n)à |
| yesterday | *bǐ: |
| ask | *hᘠ|
| bring | *kàte |
| thorn | *kárgí |
| skin | *kú:rú |
| blood | *kúdí |
| year | *gí:rí |
Some Proto-Eastern Songhay reconstructions are:[8]
| Gloss | Proto-Eastern Songhay |
|---|---|
| thatch hut | *bùgù |
| armpit, wing | *fátá |
| thirst | *gèw |
| flank | *kéráw |
| mason wasp | *bímbín(í) |
| sweat | *súŋgáy |
Comparison of numerals in individual languages:[16]
| Language | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Korandje | affu* | jnka | jnzˁa | rˁəbʕa < Arabic | χəmsa < Arabic | sətta < Arabic | səbʕa < Arabic | tmənja < Arabic | təsʕa < Arabic | ʕəʃrˁa < Arabic |
| Tadaksahak | a-ˈfːo / a-ˈfːoo-da | hiŋˈka | kaːˈrˤad < Tamasheq | aˈkːoːz < Tamasheq | ʃaˈmːuʃ < Tamasheq | ʃaːˈdˤiʃ < Tamasheq | iˈʃːa < Tamasheq | iˈtˤːam < Tamasheq | tˤaːˈsˤa < Tamasheq | maːˈrˤa < Tamasheq |
| Tasawaq | fó / a-fːó | hínká / à-hínká | hínzà / à-hínzà | táásì / à-tːáásì | xámsà < Arabic | sítːà < Arabic | sábàɣà < Arabic | tàmáníyà < Arabic | tísàɣà < Arabic | ɣàsárà < Arabic |
| Dendi | afɔ | hayinka / ahinka | ahinza | ataki | aɡu | ayidu | ayiye / ahiye | ayiyaku | ayiɡa | aweyi |
| Koyraboro Senni | affoo | ihinka | ihinza | itaatʃi | iɡɡuu | idduu | iyye | iyaaha | iyaɡɡa | iwoy |
| Koyra Chiini | foo / a-foo | hiŋka | hindʒa | taatʃi | ɡuu | iddu | iiye | yaaha | yaɡɡa | woy / wey |
| Zarma,Songhoyboro Ciine | àˈfó | ìˈhíŋká | ìˈhínzà | ìˈtaːcí | ìˈɡú | ˈíddù | ˈijjè | àˈhákˌkù | ˈjǽɡɡà | ìˈwéɪ |
Publisher and publication abbreviations:
| Official language | |
|---|---|
| National languages | |
| Other languages | |
| Immigrant languages | |
| National | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
