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. 2014 Jul;6(7):a008524. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a008524

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The geographic distribution of the major linguistic groups in Africa. The map was drawn using information (geographic locations of ethnic speakers in Africa that are based on published sources) from Haspelmath et al. (2008) (wals.info/), www.ethnologue.com (International HapMap 2005), Greenberg (1963, 1972), Vansina (1995), and Ehret (1971, 1993, 1995, 2001b). Geographic range occupied by Bantu speakers, the major linguistic subfamily within the Niger-Kordofanian phylum mentioned in the text, is also shown. Putative centers of origin and estimated time of initial expansion based on linguistic studies for three of the four language families are also listed: AA, Afroasiatic (14 kya) (Ehret 1995); NS, Nilo-Saharan (Blench 1993; Ehret 1993; Blench 2006); NK, Niger-Kordofanian (5 kya) (Nurse 1997; Ehret 2001a). Afroasiatic-speaking pastoralists were the first food-producing populations to migrate into East Africa circa 5 kya (X) (Leakey 1931; Butzer 1969; Robbins 1972; Barthelme 1977); followed by Nilo-Saharan-speaking pastoralists circa 3 kya (Y) (Leakey 1931; Bower 1973; Ambrose 1982; Distefano 1990), and later Bantu-speaking agriculturalists after circa 2.5 kya (Z) (Posnansky 1961a,b). P and q represent initial expansion of pastoralists (2.5 kya) and later Bantu-speaking agriculturalists (after 2 kya) to southern Africa from East Africa, respectively.