Kanuri is the imperial language of Borno and one of Nigeria's three Saharan languages; Hausa is the trade language; the hill country and the Lake Chad shore host a cluster of small Chadic languages.
Major languages#
- Kanuri — ~4 million speakers; Saharan branch of Nilo-Saharan; one of the oldest written languages in West Africa (Ajami script since the 11th century).
- Hausa — administrative and market lingua franca.
- Shuwa Arabic — Lake Chad shore; Semitic.
- Babur-Bura — Biu Plateau; Chadic.
- Marghi — Askira-Uba axis; Chadic.
Minor and endangered languages#
- Glavda, Cibak, Putai, Ngwaba, Mafa — Mandara-area Chadic languages, several UNESCO-endangered.
- Fulfulde — pastoralists across the state.Climate-Conflict Escalator
Lingua francas#
Kanuri in the old emirate core; Hausa universally in markets; Shuwa Arabic on the lake; English in schools.
Notable literary and political moments#
- The Diwan of the Mais of Borno (compiled in Arabic by court scholars from the 12th century) is one of the earliest indigenous African historical chronicles.
- Imam Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullah's modern Kanuri orthography (1970s) became the standard taught in Borno State schools.
Sources & further reading#
- Ethnologue: Languages of Nigeria (SIL).
- Roger Blench, *An Atlas of Nigerian Languages* (3rd ed., 2019).
- Ayo Bamgbose, *Language and the Nation* (1991).
- UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.