ABSTRACT
The Chadic language family, which is a constituent part of the Afroasiatic phylum, contains some 135 languages spoken in the sub-Saharan region west, south and east of Lake Chad. The exact number of languages is not known since new languages continue to be discovered while other supposedly independent languages turn out to be mere dialects or terminological variants. The most important Chadic language is Hausa, with some 25 million native speakers and perhaps half again that number using it as a second language. Other Chadic languages range from close to half a million to less than a thousand speakers.
