The Chadic languages are a language family spoken across northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic and Cameroon, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic phylum. The most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, the lingua franca of much of West Africa. They are divided into four subgroups:

• Biu-Mandara languages
• East Chadic languages
• Masa languages
• West Chadic languages

Bibliography

• Lukas, Johannes (1936) 'The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa.' Africa, 9, 332–349.
• Newman, Paul (1977) 'Chadic classification and reconstructions.' Afroasiatic Linguistics 5, 1, 1–42.
• Newman, Paul (1978) 'Chado-Hamitic 'adieu': new thoughts on Chadic language classification', in Fronzaroli, Pelio (ed.), Atti del Secondo Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica Camito-Semitica. Florence: Instituto de Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali, Universita di Firenze, 389–397.
• Newman, Paul (1980) The Classification of Chadic within Afroasisatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.
• Newman, Paul and Ma, Roxana (1966) 'Comparative Chadic: phonology and lexicon.' Journal of African Languages, 5, 218–251.
• Schuh, Russell (2003) 'Chadic overview', in M. Lionel Bender, Gabor Takacs, and David L. Appleyard (eds.), Selected Comparative-Historical Afrasian Linguistic Sudies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff, LINCOM Europa, 55–60.