In search of the Saharan inflectional verbal paradigms in Old Kanembu

Abstract

The extensive Old Kanembu texts found in the Borno Qur’anic manuscripts provide, as far as we know, the earliest evidence for a sub-Saharan language and shed light on the history of the languages of the Saharan family. In this article, the form/meaning features of Old Kanembu inflectional TAM’s are compared with the corresponding Kanuri, Teda-Daza and Beria inflectional paradigms. The analysis, though preliminary, demonstrates that Old Kanembu is diachronically close to proto-Western Saharan, and also reflects proto-Saharan features retained in Eastern Saharan Beria which is located at the geographical extreme of the family at some distance from Western Kanuri/Kanembu.