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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Language differences have served as a partial basis for
ethnic classification and as symbols of ethnic identity. Such
differences have been obstacles to the flow of communication in a
state as linguistically fragmented as Sudan. These barriers have
been overcome in part by the emergence of some languages as
lingua francas and by a considerable degree of multilingualism in
some areas.
Most languages spoken in Africa fall into four language
superstocks. Three of them--Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Kurdufanian, and
Nilo-Saharan--are represented in Sudan. Each is divided into
groups that are in turn subdivided into sets of closely related
languages. Two or more major groups of each superstock are
represented in Sudan, which has been historically both a northsouth and an east-west migration crossroad.
The most widely spoken language in the Sudan is Arabic, a
member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family.
Cushitic, another major division of the Afro-Asiatic language, is
represented by Bedawiye (with several dialects), spoken by the
largely nomadic Beja. Chadic, a third division, is represented by
its most important single language, Hausa, a West African tongue
used by the Hausa themselves and employed by many other West
Africans in Sudan as a lingua franca.
Niger-Kurdufanian is first divided into Niger-Congo and
Kurdufanian. The widespread Niger-Congo language group includes
many divisions and subdivisions of languages. Represented in
Sudan are Azande and several other tongues of the Adamawa-Eastern
language division, and Fulani of the West Atlantic division. The
Kurdufanian stock comprises only thirty to forty languages spoken
in a limited area of Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and their
environs.
The designation of a Nilo-Saharan superstock has not been
fully accepted by linguists, and its constituent groups and
subgroups are not firmly fixed, in part because many of the
languages have not been well studied. Assuming the validity of
the category and its internal divisions, however, eight of its
nine major divisions and many of their subdivisions are well
represented in Sudan, where roughly seventy-five languages, well
over half of those named in the 1955-56 census, could be
identified as Nilo-Saharan. Many of these languages are used only
by small groups of people. Only six or seven of them were spoken
by 1 percent or more of Sudan's 1956 population. Perhaps another
dozen were the home languages of 0.5 to 1 percent. Many other
languages were used by a few thousand or even a few hundred
people.
The number of languages and dialects in Sudan is assumed to
be about 400, including languages spoken by an insignificant
number of people. Moreover, languages of smaller ethnic groups
tended to disappear when the groups assimilated with more
dominant ethnic units.
Several lingua francas have emerged and many peoples have
become genuinely multilingual, fluent in a native language spoken
at home, a lingua franca, and perhaps other languages. Arabic is
the primary lingua franca in Sudan, given its status as the
country's official language and as the language of Islam. Arabic,
however, has several different forms, and not all who master one
are able to use another. Among the varieties noted by scholars
are classical Arabic, the language of the Quran (although
generally not a spoken language and only used for printed work
and by the educated in conversation); Modern Standard Arabic,
derived from classical Arabic; and at least two kinds of
colloquial Arabic in the Sudan--that spoken in roughly the
eastern half of the country and called Sudanese colloquial Arabic
and that spoken in western Sudan, closely akin to the colloquial
Arabic spoken in Chad. There are other colloquial forms. A pidgin
called Juba Arabic is peculiar to southern Sudan. Although some
Muslims might become acquainted with classical Arabic in the
course of rudimentary religious schooling, very few except the
most educated know it except by rote.
Modern Standard Arabic is in principle the same everywhere in
the Arab world and presumably permits communication among
educated persons whose mother tongue is one or another form of
colloquial Arabic. Despite its international character, however,
Modern Standard Arabic varies from country to country. It has
been, however, the language used in Sudan's central government,
the press, and Radio Omdurman. The latter also broadcast in
classical Arabic. One observer, writing in the early 1970s, noted
that Arabic speakers (and others who had acquired the language
informally) in western Sudan found it easier to understand the
Chadian colloquial Arabic used by Chad Radio than the Modern
Standard Arabic used by Radio Omdurman. This might also be the
case elsewhere in rural Sudan where villagers and nomads speak a
local dialect of Arabic.
Despite Arabic's status as the official national language,
English was acknowledged as the principal language in southern
Sudan in the late 1980s. It was also the chief language at the
University of Khartoum and was the language of secondary schools
even in the north before 1969. The new policy for higher
education announced by the Sudanese government in 1990 indicated
the language of instruction in all institutions of higher
learning would be Arabic.
Nevertheless, in the south, the first two years of primary
school were taught in the local language. Thereafter, through
secondary school, either Arabic or English could become the
medium of instruction (English and Arabic were regarded as of
equal importance); the language not used as a medium was taught
as a subject. In the early 1970s, when this option was
established, roughly half the general secondary classes
(equivalent to grades seven through nine) were conducted in
Arabic and half in English in Bahr al Ghazal and Al Istiwai
provinces. In early 1991, with about 90 percent of the southern
third of the country controlled by the Sudanese People's
Liberation Army (SPLA), the use of Arabic as a medium of
instruction in southern schools remained a political issue, with
many southerners regarding Arabic as an element in northern
cultural domination.
Juba (or pidgin) Arabic, developed and learned informally,
had been used in southern towns, particularly in Al Istiwai, for
some time and had spread slowly but steadily throughout the
south, but not always at the expense of English. The Juba Arabic
used in the marketplace and even by political figures addressing
ethnically mixed urban audiences could not be understood by
northern Sudanese.
Data as of June 1991
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