The Saharan languages are a small family of languages across parts of the eastern Sahara, extending from northwestern Sudan to southern Libya, north and central Chad, eastern Niger and northeastern Nigeria. Noted Saharan languages include Kanuri (9.5 million speakers, around Lake Chad in Chad, Nigeria, Niger, and Cameroon), Daza (700,000 speakers, Chad), Teda (60,000 speakers, northern Chad), and Zaghawa (350,000 speakers, eastern Chad and Sudan). They have been classified as part of the hypothetical but controversial Nilo-Saharan family. A comparative word list of the Saharan languages has been compiled by Václav Blažek (2007).

Internal classification

External classification

Roger Blench argues that the Saharan and Songhay languages form a Songhay-Saharan branch with each other within the wider Nilo-Saharan linguistic phylum.

Reconstruction

Cyffer (2020:385) gives the following Proto-Saharan reconstructions:

Comparative vocabulary

Sample basic vocabulary of Saharan languages from Blažek (2007):

Numerals

Comparison of numerals in individual languages: