Lafofa languages

{{Short description|Dialect cluster of the Nuba Mountains of southern Sudan}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Lafofa

| nativename = Kidie Lafofa

| states = Sudan

| region = Nuba Hills

| ethnicity = Lafofa

| speakers = {{sigfig|30,000|2}}

| date = 2023

| ref = e27

| familycolor = Niger-Congo

| fam2 = Kordofanian?

| fam3 = Talodi?

| fam4 = Tegem

| dia1 = Tegem

| dia2 = Amira

| map2 = Lang Status 40-SE.svg

| mapcaption2 = {{center|{{small|Lafofa is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger}}}}

| iso3 = laf

| glotto = lafo1243

| glottorefname = Lafofa

}}

Lafofa, also Tegem–Amira, is a dialect cluster spoken in the southern Nuba Mountains in the south of Sudan. Blench (2010) considers the Tegem and Amira varieties to be distinct languages; as Lafofa is poorly attested, there may be others.

Greenberg (1950) classified Lafofa as one of the Talodi languages, albeit a divergent one, but without much evidence. More recently this position has been abandoned, and Lafofa is left unclassified within Niger–Congo. Norton (2016) tentatively finds Lafofa to be closest to the Ijoid languages.Russell Norton, 'Lafofa: a distant Ijoid-related language'. CLAN 2016 It is considered a language isolate by Glottolog.

Unlike the neighbouring Talodi-Heiban languages which have SVO word order, the Lafofa languages have SOV word order.{{Cite book|title=The Languages and Linguistics of Africa|last=Güldemann|first=Tom|editor-last=Güldemann|editor-first=Tom|publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|chapter=Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa|year=2018|isbn=978-3-11-042606-9|doi=10.1515/9783110421668-002|location=Berlin|pages=58–444|series=The World of Linguistics series|volume=11|s2cid=133888593 }}