SUDANIC LANGUAGES. This term is applied to a num ber of languages spoken by Negro and other peoples from Abys sinia to Nigeria. At present sixteen main divisions are recognized.
) Nilo-Chad, a group with thirty languages, including Zebu, Kunama, Kanuri; 2) Nilo-Abyssinian (15 languages), including Shilluk, Nuer and Dinka. 3) Nilo-Equatorial (26 languages) in cluding Bari, Turkana, Suk, Nandi, Masai. 4) Kordofan ( o languages) including Talodi and Lumun. 5) Nilo-Congo (19 lan guages) including Madi, Mangbetu and Lega. 6) Ubangian group (25 languages) including Zande, Gola and Seri. 7) Chari-Wadain (12 languages) including Bongo, Kaba and Sara. 8) Charian (15 languages) including Sokoro, Bwa, and Mana. 9) Nigero-Chad (31 languages) including Kuri, Fali, Bata, Angas and Hausa. 1o) Nigero-Cameroons (66 languages) including Gwala, Nde, Kpe, Ejik, Ibo, Nupe, Yoruba. 1) Lower-Niger group consists of Idyo or Boni. In the 12th or Voltaic group are 53 languages including Tern, Mampuru, Kasena, Ga, Kulango, Semu. In the 13th or Ivory Coast Dahomy group are 48 languages inclusive of the Ewe group, the Tchi group and the Fanti and Abron. The 14th or Niger-Senegal group has 36 languages including Mandingo, Vai and Mende. The 24 languages spoken on the Ivory-Liberian coast (15th group) include Bete, Kwa and Ne. To the 16th or Senegal-Guinea group belong 24 languages, comprising Timne, Walof, Kisi. Certain traces are found of the noun classifications conspicuous in Bantu languages. The distinction between noun and verb is weak. Kanuri, Hausa and Peul are sometimes written by the use of Arabic letters.
See A. Meillet and M. Cohen, Les Langues du Monde (1924); W. Schmidt, Die Sprachfamilien and Sprachen-Kreise der Erde (1927). SUDAN PLANTATIONS SYNDICATE, LTD., a British joint-stock company formed in 1904, with a capital of L8o,000, as the Sudan Experimental Plantations Syndicate, Ltd.
In 1928 the capital stood at £2,250,000.
By an agreement with the Sudan Government, the syndicate was to develop an area of about ioo,000 acres of the Gezira plain, irrigated by a barrage across the Blue Nile. The Sudan Govern ment had to provide the land and the major canalization, and the syndicate and the native tenant cultivator were each entitled to receive a share of the proceeds of the crops. The World War supervening, the building of the Sennar dam was delayed, but by means of additional pumping stations the area under cotton was increased to some 22,500 acres.
The agreement was to be in force until 1925, but since the completion of the Sennar darn a new agreement has taken its place, extending to 195o, and providing for certain reductions in the syndicate's share of the crop as compared with its participa tion of 25% under the old agreement. The syndicate prepares and irrigates the land, letting it to natives, who plant cotton and various leguminous crops under supervision, under three years' rotation. The syndicate acts as bankers to the tenants, to whom they make loans on the security of their crops.
The shipments of cotton to the United Kingdom have grown : Bales Bales1914-15 Gezira . • 3,935 Zeidab . . . . 3,109 1926-27 Gezira . . 113,168 Zeidab . . . . 3,042 The syndicate has in operation four factories of 8o gins each, handling 75o bales per day; two more factories are in course of erection. The cotton, of the Sakellaridis type, is a long and silky staple, commanding a high price. The area under cultiva tion is to be 15o,000 acres in 1929-30. The cotton exported from the Sudan in 1911 was 22,823 bales; in 1926 it had increased to 122,130 bales, of the approximate value of £3,500,000.
(L. C. M.)