The Eastern Jebel languages are a small subfamily of the Eastern Sudanic branch of the proposed Nilo-Saharan family, spoken in the hills of An Nil al Azraq province in eastern Sudan; jebel is simply Arabic for mountain. Gaam, spoken by 40,000 to 80,000 people around the towns of Bau, Bobuk, Kukur, Gabanit and Sawda in the Tabi Hills, was long believed to be the family's only member until linguist M. Lionel Bender obtained further information on three other, far more threatened languages: Aka, formerly spoken in the Sillok Hills, Kelo, formerly spoken in the Tornasi Hills, and Molo, formerly spoken near Jebel Malkan by the Ethiopian border, all three significantly influenced by the neighboring Berta language.
Facts
RegionAn Nil al Azraq (Blue Nile) province in eastern Sudan; Gaam, the main surviving member, is spoken in the Tabi Hills around Bau, Bobuk, Kukur, Gabanit and Sawda. 1 Speaker CountReported as a range, 40,000 to 80,000 speakers, nearly all in Gaam, the only member of the family still widely spoken; the other three languages (Aka, Kelo, Molo) are extinct or nearly so. 60,000 recorded here as the range midpoint. Proto-Language StatusProto-Eastern Jebel has been reconstructed, by Bender (1998); the family is a small subfamily of the Eastern Sudanic branch of the proposed Nilo-Saharan phylum. 1 Sources
1. Wikipedia: Eastern Jebel Languages
Wikimedia Foundationlead sectionQuote, lead section
The Eastern Jebel languages are a small subfamily belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subgroup of Nilo-Saharan. They are spoken in the hills of An Nil al Azraq province in eastern Sudan (the name "Jebel" is simply Arabic for "mountain".)
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