Bua Languages

The Bua languages are a subgroup of the Mbum–Day subgroup of the Savanna languages spoken by fewer than 30,000 people in southern Chad in an area stretching roughly between the Chari River and the Guera Massif. They were labeled "G13" in Joseph Greenberg's Adamawa language-family proposal. They are ultimately part of the Niger–Congo family, and have exerted a significant influence on Laal.

All of these languages are tonal, with distinctive vowel length and nasal vowels in limited contexts. Most of these languages have lost the typical Niger–Congo noun class system (Goula Iro appears to have retained it to some degree.) However, its former presence is betrayed by their quite complicated system of plural formation, combining internal ablaut with changes to final consonants and/or suffixation.

They include:

• Bua language (7,708 speakers in 1993), north of the Chari River around Korbol and Gabil (after which the group was named); mutually comprehensible with Fanian.
• Fanian, or Mana, or Kobe (> 1,100 speakers in 1997), in the villages of Mouraye, Sengué, Malakonjo, Rim, Sisi, Karo west of Lake Iro.
• Niellim or Lua (5,157 speakers in 1993), spoken around Niellim and Niou along the Chari River north of Sarh (including the extinct Chini dialect)
• Tunia (2,255 speakers in 1993), around Sarh (including the extinct Perim dialect)
• Noy or Loo (36 speakers in 1993), spoken in Bedaya, Balimba, Djoli, Koumra, and Koumogo south of Sarh. Nearly extinct.
• Gula languages:
  • Gula Iro or Kulaal (3,500 speakers in 1991), around Lake Iro.
  • Zan Gula (4,000 speakers in 1997), around Zan and Chinguil.
  • Bon Gula (>1,200 speakers in 1997), in the villages of Bon and Ibir.
• Koke (600 speakers in 1993), around Daguela
• Bolgo (1,800 speakers in 1993), near Melfi, in Koya, Boli, Gagne, and Bedi.

The first to note the similarity between Bua and Niellim in print was G. Nachtigal, in 1889. Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes added Tunia and "Mana" (possibly an alternate name for Fanian) in 1907, forming a "Groupe Boa". Johannes Lukas (1937) likewise described a "Bua-Gruppe" consisting of Bua, Niellim, and Koke, and in Joseph Greenberg's 1963 classification The Languages of Africa, the three languages were placed together in the Adamawa subphylum as a group named Adamawa-13. Later, Pairault (1965, 1969) added the more northerly Gula languages, Fanian, Koke, and Bolgo, allowing Samarin (1971) to define roughly the current membership of the Bua languages/Adamawa-13. Palayer later added Noy.