Languages of Chad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chad has two official languages, French and Modern Standard Arabic, and over 120 indigenous languages. A vernacular version of Arabic, Chadian Arabic, is a lingua franca and the language of commerce, spoken by 40-60% of the population.[1] The two official languages have fewer speakers than Chadian Arabic.[citation needed] Standard Arabic is spoken by around 615,000 speakers.[2] French is widely spoken in the main cities such as N'Djamena and by most men in the south of the country. Most schooling is in French.[3]

Chad submitted an application to join the Arab League as a member state on 25 March 2014, which is still pending.[4]

Chadian Sign Language is actually Nigerian Sign Language, a dialect of American Sign Language; Andrew Foster introduced ASL in the 1960s, and Chadian teachers for the deaf train in Nigeria.

Niger–Congo languages[]

Nilo-Saharan languages[]

Afro-Asiatic languages[]

(Ethnologue lists 54 Chadic languages in Chad altogether, many of them small.)

Creole languages[]

Unclassified languages[]

  • Laal (749, SIL 2000)

References[]

  1. ^ https://www.graphicmaps.com/chad/languages
  2. ^ https://www.graphicmaps.com/chad/languages
  3. ^ "International Schools in Chad".
  4. ^ Middle East Monitor: South Sudan and Chad apply to join the Arab League, 12 April 2014, retrieved 6 May 2017

External links[]

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