Saharan

Saharan is a small family of about 25 languages spoken across the eastern Sahara, from northwestern Sudan and southern Libya through north and central Chad to eastern Niger and northeastern Nigeria, and is tentatively classified within the disputed Nilo-Saharan phylum. Its largest member is Kanuri, spoken by roughly 9.5 million people around Lake Chad in Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon, followed by Daza with about 700,000 speakers, Zaghawa with about 350,000 and Teda with about 60,000. The family splits into an Eastern Saharan branch, comprising the extinct Berti and the living Zaghawa, and a Western Saharan branch made up of the Kanuri group (Kanuri and Kanembu) and the Tebu group (Daza and Teda).