The Eastern Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan; they are believed to have begun to diverge about 3,000 years ago, and have spread southwards from an original home in Equatoria in the far south of Sudan. They are spoken across a large area in East Africa, ranging from Equatoria to the highlands of Tanzania. Their speakers are mostly cattle herders living in semi-arid or arid plains.
According to Vossen, they are classified as follows by the comparative method:
Bari languages
Teso-Lotuko-Maa:
Teso-Turkana languages (or Ateker languages)
Teso language
Turkana language
Karimojong language
Lotuko-Maa:
Lotuko languages
Lotuko language
Lopit language
Lokoya language
Dongotono language
Ongamo-Maa languages
Ongamo language
Maa languages
Maasai language
Camus language
Samburu language
It is generally agreed upon that Bari forms a primary branch, but lower-level splits are less clear.
Bibliography
Rainer Vossen. The Eastern Nilotes: Linguistic and Historical Reconstructions. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag 1982. ISBN 3-496-000698-6.
Languages of the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family are spoken by a substantial portion of the population in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; by scattered groups elsewhere in North Africa; and along the southern fringes of the Sahara Desert in western Africa.
Languages spoken farther to the south-east, including Maasai in Kenya, have long been called Nilo-Hamitic; recent investigations, however, appear to prove that these tongues have no direct relationship to languages of the Afro-Asiatic family, but are most closely related to the Niloticlanguages.
North of the Bantu language area, in the north of the Republic of the Congo and adjacent territory, is a branch of the Volta-Congo subfamily, the North branch.
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