Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A language family of sub-Saharan Africa spoken in the interior from Nigeria to Kenya and including Kanuri, Nubian, and the Nilotic languages.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun A major language family spoken mostly along the
Nile river and in large parts of theSahara .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a family of East African languages spoken by Nilotic peoples from the Sahara south to Kenya and Tanzania
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Note 98: Ehret, A Historical-Comparative Reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan, 623. back
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Eastern Sahelian (Nilo-Saharan): * bóɗ ̣or bōɗ ̣ "to scratch (skin surface)" proto-Ruvu * - boboda "to rub on the skin."
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The word is Nilo-Saharan and also found in the languages of Jesus and the Old Testament.
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The word is Nilo-Saharan and also found in the languages of Jesus and the Old Testament.
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Note 16: The estimate for Afrasan (Afroasiatic) is 371; Nilo-Saharan, 196; and Khoisan, 35.
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Note 51: Eastern Sahelian (Nilo-Saharan) * bóɗ ̣or bōɗ ̣ "to scratch (skin surface)"; PR * - boboda "to rub a substance on skin."
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Of the estimated 2,035 languages spoken on the continent of Africa, a recent study estimated the Niger-Congo family comprises 1,436 languages, with a conservative estimate of 360 million speakers. 16 Like other language families indigenous to the continent — Afrasan (Afroasiatic), Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan — the Niger-Congo language family long, long ago comprised communities of speakers who spoke a common ancestral language, proto-Niger-Congo.
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His name comes from Luo, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken, among other places, in Western Kenya, where his father was born.
Terrance Heath: Sotomayor and the Vulcan Standard, Pt. 2 2009
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Languages: English (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts), Ganda or Luganda (most widely used of the Niger-Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other Niger-Congo languages, Nilo-Saharan languages, Swahili, Arabic
Uganda 2009
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UgandaEnglish (official national language, taught in grade schools, used in courts of law and by most newspapers and some radio broadcasts), Ganda or Luganda (most widely used of the Niger-Congo languages, preferred for native language publications in the capital and may be taught in school), other Niger-Congo languages, Nilo-Saharan languages, Swahili, Arabic
Languages 2008
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