1.
Niger
–
Niger, officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. Niger is bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. Niger covers a area of almost 1,270,000 km2, making it the largest country in West Africa. The countrys predominantly Islamic population of about 19 million is mostly clustered in the far south, the capital city is Niamey, located in the far-southwest corner of Niger. Niger is a country, and is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations Human Development Index. Much of the portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the fertile south. Nigerien society reflects a diversity drawn from the long independent histories of its ethnic groups and regions. Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of large states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule, following a military coup in 2010, Niger has become a democratic, multi-party state. A majority live in areas, and have little access to advanced education. Early human settlement in Niger is evidenced by archaeological remains. In prehistoric times, the climate of the Sahara was wet and provided favorable conditions for agriculture, in 2005–06, a graveyard in the Tenere desert was discovered by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist from the University of Chicago. His team discovered 5, 000-year-old remains of a woman and two children in the Tenere Desert, the evidence along with remains of animals that do not typically live in desert are among the strongest evidence of the green Sahara in Niger. It is believed that progressive desertification around 5000 BCE pushed sedentary populations to the south and south-east. By at least the 5th century BCE, Niger became an area of trade, led by the Berber tribes from the north. This trade has made Agadez a pivotal place of the trans-Saharan trade and this mobility, which would continue in waves for several centuries, was accompanied with further migration to the south and interbreeding between southern black and northern white populations. It was also aided by the introduction of Islam to the region at the end of the 7th century, several empires and kingdoms also flourished during this era up to the beginning of colonization in Africa
2.
Nigeria
–
Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country. Modern-day Nigeria has been the site of numerous kingdoms and tribal states over the millennia, the modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures whilst practising indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms, Nigeria became a formally independent federation in 1960, and plunged into a civil war from 1967 to 1970. Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa, owing to its large population, with approximately 184 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of youth in the world, Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern part of the country, and Muslims in the northern part. A minority of the population practise religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as native to the Igbo. As of 2015, Nigeria is the worlds 20th largest economy, worth more than $500 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and it overtook South Africa to become Africas largest economy in 2014. The 2013 debt-to-GDP ratio was 11 percent, Nigeria is a member of the MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globes next BRIC-like economies. It is also listed among the Next Eleven economies set to become among the biggest in the world, Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations and OPEC. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country and this name was coined in the late 19th century by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The origin of the name Niger, which applied only to the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name egerew n-igerewen used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu prior to 19th-century European colonialism. The Nok civilisation of Northern Nigeria flourished between 500 BC and AD200, producing life-sized terracotta figures which are some of the earliest known sculptures in Sub-Saharan Africa, further north, the cities Kano and Katsina have a recorded history dating to around 999 AD. Hausa kingdoms and the Kanem-Bornu Empire prospered as trade posts between North and West Africa, the Kingdom of Nri of the Igbo people consolidated in the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British in 1911. Nri was ruled by the Eze Nri, and the city of Nri is considered to be the foundation of Igbo culture, Nri and Aguleri, where the Igbo creation myth originates, are in the territory of the Umeuri clan. Members of the clan trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri, in West Africa, the oldest bronzes made using the lost-wax process were from Igbo Ukwu, a city under Nri influence. The Yoruba kingdoms of Ife and Oyo in southwestern Nigeria became prominent in the 12th and 14th centuries, the oldest signs of human settlement at Ifes current site date back to the 9th century, and its material culture includes terracotta and bronze figures
3.
Ghana
–
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km², Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east, Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for a millennium, numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, following over a century of native resistance, Ghanas current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. On 6 March 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan African nation to become independent of European colonisation, a multicultural nation, Ghana has a population of approximately 27 million, spanning a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. Five percent of the population practices traditional faiths,71. 2% adhere to Christianity and 17. 6% are Muslim and its diverse geography and ecology ranges from coastal savannahs to tropical jungles. Ghana is a country led by a president who is both head of state and head of the government. Ghanas economy is one of the strongest and most diversified in Africa, following a century of relative stability. Ghanas growing economic prosperity and democratic political system have made it a power in West Africa. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, Group of 24, Ghana was already recognized as one of the great kingdoms in Bilad el-Sudan by the ninth century. Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and this included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom. Until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghanas territorial area was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans. Although the area of present-day Ghana in West Africa has experienced many population movements, by the early 11th century, the Akans were firmly established in the Akan state called Bonoman, for which the Brong-Ahafo Region is named. From the 13th century, Akans emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan states of Ghana and these states included Bonoman, Ashanti, Denkyira, Mankessim Kingdom, and Akwamu Eastern region. By the 19th century, the territory of the part of Ghana was included in the Kingdom of Ashanti. The Kingdom of Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, prior to Akan contact with Europeans, the Akan Ashanti people created an advanced economy based on principally gold and gold bar commodities then traded with the states of Africa. The earliest known kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana were the Mole-Dagbani states, the Mole-Dagombas came on horseback from present-day Burkina Faso under a single leader, Naa Gbewaa. The death of Naa Gbewaa caused civil war among his children, some of whom broke off and founded separate states including Dagbon, Mamprugu, Mossi, Nanumba, Akan trade with European states began after contact with Portuguese in the 15th century
4.
Benin
–
Benin, officially the Republic of Benin and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, the majority of its population lives on the small southern coastline of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, Benin covers an area of 114,763 square kilometers and its population in 2015 was estimated to be approximately 10.88 million. Benin is a nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment. The official language of Benin is French, however, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and this region was referred to as the Slave Coast from as early as the 17th century due to the large number of slaves shipped to the New World during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. After slavery was abolished, France took over the country and renamed it French Dahomey, in 1960, Dahomey gained full independence from France, and had a tumultuous period with many different democratic governments, many military coups and military governments. A Marxist–Leninist state called the Peoples Republic of Benin existed between 1975 and 1990, in 1991, it was replaced by the current multi-party Republic of Benin. During the colonial period and at independence, the country was known as Dahomey, on 30 November 1975 it was renamed to Benin, after the body of water on which the country lies—the Bight of Benin—which, in turn, had been named after the Benin Empire. The country of Benin has no connection to Benin City in modern Nigeria, the form Benin is the result of a Portuguese corruption of the city of Ubinu. The new name, Benin, was chosen for its neutrality, the current country of Benin combines three areas which had different political and ethnic systems prior to French colonial control. Before 1700, there were a few important city states along the coast, the situation changed in the 1600s and early 1700s as the Kingdom of Dahomey, which was of Fon ethnicity, was founded on the Abomey plateau and began taking over areas along the coast. The Dahomey Kingdom was known for its culture and traditions, young boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers, and taught the kingdoms military customs until they were old enough to join the army. This emphasis on preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of black Sparta from European observers. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, by about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling Africans to the European slave-traders. Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s, the decline was partly due to the banning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain and other countries. This decline continued until 1885, when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the present-day Benin Republic bound for Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, the capitals name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning New Port
5.
Cameroon
–
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroons coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. French and English are the languages of Cameroon. The country is referred to as Africa in miniature for its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, the country is well known for its native styles of music, particularly makossa and bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões, which became Cameroon in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 known as Kamerun. After World War I, the territory was divided between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates, the Union des Populations du Cameroun political party advocated independence, but was outlawed by France in the 1950s, leading to the Cameroonian Independence War. It waged war on French and UPC militant forces until 1971, in 1960, the French-administered part of Cameroon became independent as the Republic of Cameroun under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. The southern part of British Cameroons federated with it in 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon, the federation was abandoned in 1972. The country was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972, Cameroon enjoys relatively high political and social stability. This has permitted the development of agriculture, roads, railways, nevertheless, large numbers of Cameroonians live in poverty as subsistence farmers. Power lies firmly in the hands of the president since 1982, Paul Biya. The English-speaking territories of Cameroon have grown increasingly alienated from the government, politicians and civil society in English-speaking regions have called for greater decentralization and even complete separation or independence from the former French-governed territories. The territory of present-day Cameroon was first settled during the Neolithic Era, the longest continuous inhabitants are groups such as the Baka. From here, Bantu migrations into eastern, southern, and central Africa are believed to have originated about 2,000 years ago, the Sao culture arose around Lake Chad c. AD500 and gave way to the Kanem and its successor state, kingdoms, fondoms, and chiefdoms arose in the west. Portuguese sailors reached the coast in 1472 and they noted an abundance of the ghost shrimp Lepidophthalmus turneranus in the Wouri River and named it Rio dos Camarões, which became Cameroon in English
6.
Ivory Coast
–
Ivory Coast or Côte dIvoire, officially the Republic of Côte dIvoire, is a country located in West Africa. Ivory Coasts political capital is Yamoussoukro, and its economic capital and its bordering countries are Guinea and Liberia in the west, Burkina Faso and Mali in the north, and Ghana in the east. The Gulf of Guinea is located south of Ivory Coast, prior to its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire, and Baoulé. Two Anyi kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi, attempted to retain their identity through the French colonial period. Ivory Coast became a protectorate of France in 1843–1844 and was formed into a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. Ivory Coast achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country maintained close political and economic association with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close ties to the West, especially France. Since the end of Houphouët-Boignys rule in 1993, Ivory Coast has experienced one coup détat, in 1999, the first took place between 2002 and 2007 and the second during 2010-2011. As a result, in 2000, the adopted a new Constitution. Ivory Coast is a republic with an executive power invested in its President. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was a powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. Ivory Coast went through a crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. Changing into the 21st-century Ivorian economy is largely market-based and still heavily on agriculture. The official language is French, with indigenous languages also widely used, including Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin. In total there are around 78 languages spoken in Ivory Coast, popular religions include Islam, Christianity, and various indigenous religions. Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, there was also a Pepper Coast also known as the Grain Coast, a Gold Coast, and a Slave Coast. Like those, the name Ivory Coast reflected the major trade occurred on that particular stretch of the coast. One can find the name Cote de Dents regularly used in older works and it was used in Ducketts Dictionnaire and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for examples, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte dIvoire. In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte dIvoire and it retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960
7.
Togo
–
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital Lomé is located, Togo covers 57,000 square kilometres, making it one of the smallest countries in Africa, with a population of approximately 7.5 million. From the 11th to the 16th century, various tribes entered the region from all directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the region was a major trading center for Europeans to search for slaves, earning Togo. In 1884, Germany declared Togoland a protectorate, after World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960, in 1967, Gnassingbé Eyadéma led a successful military coup détat after which he became president. At the time of his death in 2005, Gnassingbé was the leader in modern African history. In 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbé was elected president, Togo is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with a climate that provides good growing seasons. The official language is French, with other languages spoken in Togo. The largest religious group in Togo consists of those with indigenous beliefs, Togo is a member of the United Nations, African Union, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie and Economic Community of West African States. Archaeological finds indicate that ancient tribes were able to produce pottery and that name Togo is translated from Ewe language language as land where lagoons lie. Not much is known of the period before arrival of the Portuguese in 1490, during the period from the 11th century to the 16th century, various tribes entered the region from all directions, the Ewé from the east, and the Mina and Guin from the west. Most of them settled in coastal areas, in 1884, a treaty was signed at Togoville with the King Mlapa III, whereby Germany claimed a protectorate over a stretch of territory along the coast and gradually extended its control inland. Its borders were defined after the capture of hinterland by German forces and signing agreements with France, in 1905, this became the German colony of Togoland. The local population was forced to work, cultivate cotton, coffee and cocoa, a railway and the port of Lomé were built for export of agricultural products. The Germans introduced modern techniques of cultivation of cocoa, coffee and cotton, during the First World War, Togoland was invaded by Britain and France, proclaiming the Anglo-French condominium. On 7 December 1916 the condominium collapsed and Togo was divided into British,20 July 1922 Great Britain received the League of Nations mandate to govern the western part of Togo and France to govern the eastern part. In 1945, the received the right to send three representatives to the French parliament
8.
Sudan
–
Sudan, also known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and also the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political, cultural and commercial centre of the nation. It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, however, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
9.
Hausa people
–
The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. The largest population of Hausa are concentrated in Nigeria and Niger, most Hausa, however, live in small villages or towns in Africa, where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle, and engage in trade. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group, the Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the nobility in Hausa society. Daura city is the origin of Hausawa, Hausa people, the town predates all the major Hausa towns in tradition and culture. A table of Hausa ethnic population by country, Daura, in northern Nigeria is the oldest city of Hausaland. The Hausa of Sokoto, also in northern Nigeria, speak the oldest surviving classical vernacular of the language, historically Sokoto was the centre of Hausa Islamic scholarship. Migrants from these areas were introducing Islam to many of the Hausa by the 14th century, all of these groups live in the Sahel, Saharan and Sudanian regions, and as a result have influenced each others cultures to varying degrees. Today some Fulani people cannot be distinguished from Hausa people in northern states of Nigeria, due to inter-marriage. In Agadez and Saharan areas of central Niger, the Tuareg and Hausa groups are indistinguishable from each other in their traditional clothing, but the two groups differ in language, lifestyle and preferred beasts of burden. Islamic Shari’a law is loosely the law of the land in Hausa areas, well understood by any Islamic scholar or teacher, known in Hausa as a mallam, mallan or malam. This pluralist attitude toward ethnic-identity and cultural affiliation has enabled the Hausa to inhabit one of the largest geographic regions of non-Bantu ethnic groups in Africa, the Nok culture appeared in Northern Nigeria around 1000 BC and vanished under unknown circumstances around 300 AD in the region of West Africa. It is believed to be the product of a nation that branched to create the Hausa, Gwari, Birom, Kanuri, Nupe. The Kwatarkwashi Culture or Sokoto Culture located to the North west of Nok is thought to be the same as or an ancestor of the Nok. Noks social system is thought to have highly advanced. The Nok culture is considered to be the earliest sub-Saharan producer of life-sized Terracotta, the refinement of this culture is attested to by the image of a Nok dignitary at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The dignitary is portrayed wearing a crooked baton, the dignitary is also portrayed sitting with flared nostrils, and an open mouth suggesting performance. Other images show figures on horseback, indicating that the Nok culture possessed the horse, iron use, in smelting and forging for tools, appears in Nok culture in Africa at least by 550 BC and possibly earlier
10.
Second language
–
A persons second language or L2, is a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but that is used in the locale of that person. In contrast, a language is a language that is learned in an area where that language is not generally spoken. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or linguas franca, more informally, a second language can be said to be any language learned in addition to ones native language, especially in the context of second language acquisition. A persons first language is not necessarily their dominant language, the one they use most or are most comfortable with and this can happen when young children move, with or without their family, to a new language environment. The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen as part of his Monitor Theory, according to Krashen, the acquisition of a language is a natural process, whereas learning a language is a conscious one. In the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations, in the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction, however, research in SLA. focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language. SLA has been influenced by linguistic and psychological theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge, many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms, responsible for much of human learning, process language. These theories have all influenced second-language teaching and pedagogy, there are many different methods of second-language teaching, many of which stem directly from a particular theory. Some of these approaches are more popular than others, and are viewed to be more effective, most language teachers do not use one singular style, but will use a mix in their teaching. This provides a balanced approach to teaching and helps students of a variety of learning styles succeed. The defining difference between a first language and a language is the age the person learned the language. For example, linguist Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty, in most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the critical period hypothesis, in acquiring an L2, Hyltenstam found that around the age of six or seven seemed to be a cut-off point for bilinguals to achieve native-like proficiency. After that age, L2 learners could get near-native-like-ness but their language would, the inability of some subjects to achieve native-like proficiency must be seen in relation to the age of onset. “The age of 6 or 8 does seem to be an important period in distinguishing between near-native and native-like ultimate attainment, more specifically, it may be suggested that AO interacts with frequency and intensity of language use”. Furthermore, they discuss a number of cases where a native-like L2 was acquired during adulthood, as we are learning more and more about the brain, there is a hypothesis that when a child is going through puberty, that is the time that accents start
11.
Language family
–
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. Linguists therefore describe the languages within a language family as being genetically related. Estimates of the number of living languages vary from 5,000 to 8,000, depending on the precision of ones definition of language, the 2013 edition of Ethnologue catalogs just over 7,000 living human languages. A living language is one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified. Membership of languages in a family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, speakers of a language family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, individuals belonging to other speech communities may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing, for example, Germanic languages are Germanic in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a unit, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a level. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, a top-level family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to other, the closer the languages will be related. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, there is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry that was verified statistically. Languages interpreted in terms of the phylogenetic tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically as opposed to horizontally. A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations, thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language to nearly twenty, most of the worlds languages are known to be related to others
12.
Afroasiatic languages
–
Afroasiatic, also known as Afrasian and traditionally as Hamito-Semitic, is a large language family of several hundred related languages and dialects. It comprises about 300 or so living languages and dialects, according to the 2009 Ethnologue estimate and it includes languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel. Afroasiatic languages have 350+ million native speakers, the fourth largest number of any language family, the phylum has six branches, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic and Semitic. By far the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language is Arabic, including literary Arabic and it has around 200 to 230 million native speakers concentrated primarily in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Malta. Modern Aramaic, spoken by about 550,000 people worldwide and this is not just one language — It includes a number of subdivisions, with Assyrian Neo-Aramaic being the most spoken variety. In addition to languages spoken today, Afroasiatic includes several important ancient languages, such as Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew and it is uncertain when or where the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family existed. Proposed locations include North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Sahara, the terms Hamitic and Semitic were etymologically derived from the Book of Genesis, which describes various Biblical tribes descended from Ham and Shem, two sons of Noah. By the 1860s, the constituent elements within the broader Afroasiatic family had been worked out. The scholar Friedrich Müller introduced the name Hamito-Semitic for the family in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft. Maurice Delafosse later coined the term Afroasiatic, however, it did not come into general use until Joseph Greenberg formally proposed its adoption. In doing so, Greenberg sought to emphasize the fact that Afroasiatic spanned the continents of both Africa and Asia, individual scholars have also called the family Erythraean and Lisramic. The term Hamito-Semitic remains in use in the traditions of some European countries. Greenberg and others considered it a subgroup of Cushitic, whereas others have raised doubts about it being part of Afroasiatic at all, Harold Fleming proposes that Ongota constitutes a separate branch of Afroasiatic. Bonny Sands believes the most convincing proposal is by Savà and Tosco, Beja is sometimes listed as a separate branch of Afroasiatic but is more often included in the Cushitic branch, which has a high degree of internal diversity. Whether the various branches of Cushitic actually form a family is sometimes questioned. There is no consensus on the interrelationships of the five branches of Afroasiatic. This situation is not unusual, even among long-established language families, there are also many disagreements concerning the classification of the Indo-European languages. Meroitic has been proposed as an unclassified Afroasiatic language, because it shares the characteristic of the family
13.
Chadic languages
–
The Chadic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family that is spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, Central African Republic, the most widely spoken Chadic language is Hausa, a lingua franca of much of inland West Africa. Newman classified the languages into the four groups which have been accepted in all subsequent literature, further subbranching, however, has not been as robust, Blench, for example, only accepts the A/B bifurcation of East Chadic. Two branches, which include the Hausa, Ron, Bole, and Angas languages, and the Bade, Warji, three branches, which include the Bura, Kamwe, and Bata languages, among other groups, the Buduma and Musgu languages, and Gidar East Chadic. This paternal marker is common in parts of West Eurasia, cruciani et al. thus propose that the Proto-Chadic speakers during the mid-Holocene migrated from the Levant to the Central Sahara, and from there settled in the Lake Chad Basin. Lukas, Johannes The linguistic situation in the Lake Chad area in Central Africa, zentralsudanische Studien, Hamburg 1937, Newman, Paul and Ma, Roxana Comparative Chadic, phonology and lexicon. Journal of African Languages,5, 218–251, Newman, Paul Chadic classification and reconstructions. Newman, Paul Chado-Hamitic adieu, new thoughts on Chadic language classification, in Fronzaroli, Pelio, florence, Instituto de Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali, Università di Firenze, 389–397. Newman, Paul The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic, herrmann Jungraithmayr, Kiyoshi Shimizu, Chadic lexical roots. Herrmann Jungraithmayr, Dymitr Ibriszimow, Chadic lexical roots
14.
Writing system
–
A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
15.
Latin script
–
Latin script is used as the standard method of writing in most Western and Central European languages, as well as in many languages in other parts of the world. Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the most widely adopted writing system in the world, Latin script is also the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet. The 26 most widespread letters are the contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The script is either called Roman script or Latin script, in reference to its origin in ancient Rome, in the context of transliteration, the term romanization or romanisation is often found. Unicode uses the term Latin as does the International Organization for Standardization, the numeral system is called the Roman numeral system, and the collection of the elements, Roman numerals. The numbers 1,2,3. are Latin/Roman script numbers for the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the Latin alphabet spread, along with Latin, from the Italian Peninsula to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Latin script also came into use for writing the West Slavic languages and several South Slavic languages, the speakers of East Slavic languages generally adopted Cyrillic along with Orthodox Christianity. The Serbian language uses both scripts, with Cyrillic predominating in official communication and Latin elsewhere, as determined by the Law on Official Use of the Language and Alphabet. As late as 1500, the Latin script was limited primarily to the languages spoken in Western, Northern, the Orthodox Christian Slavs of Eastern and Southeastern Europe mostly used Cyrillic, and the Greek alphabet was in use by Greek-speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. The Arabic script was widespread within Islam, both among Arabs and non-Arab nations like the Iranians, Indonesians, Malays, and Turkic peoples, most of the rest of Asia used a variety of Brahmic alphabets or the Chinese script. It is used for many Austronesian languages, including the languages of the Philippines, Latin letters served as the basis for the forms of the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah, however, the sound values are completely different. In the late 19th century, the Romanians returned to the Latin alphabet, under French rule and Portuguese missionary influence, a Latin alphabet was devised for the Vietnamese language, which had previously used Chinese characters. In 1928, as part of Mustafa Kemal Atatürks reforms, the new Republic of Turkey adopted a Latin alphabet for the Turkish language, kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iranian-speaking Tajikistan, and the breakaway region of Transnistria kept the Cyrillic alphabet, chiefly due to their close ties with Russia. In the 1930s and 1940s, the majority of Kurds replaced the Arabic script with two Latin alphabets, although the only official Kurdish government uses an Arabic alphabet for public documents, the Latin Kurdish alphabet remains widely used throughout the region by the majority of Kurdish-speakers. In 2015, the Kazakh government announced that the Latin alphabet would replace Cyrillic as the system for the Kazakh language by 2025. In the course of its use, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use in new languages, sometimes representing phonemes not found in languages that were written with the Roman characters. These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining an alphabetical order or collation sequence, a digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters in sequence. Examples are ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨rh⟩, ⟨sh⟩ in English, a trigraph is made up of three letters, like the German ⟨sch⟩, the Breton ⟨c’h⟩ or the Milanese ⟨oeu⟩
16.
Arabic script
–
The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, dialects of Mandinka, Central Kurdish, Luri, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and others. Until the 16th century, it was used to write some texts in Spanish. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by the number of countries using it, the Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, or consonants and a few vowels, the script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʼān, the holy book of Islam. It is also the basis for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy, the Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Malay and Urdu which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology, the modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars. In the cases of Bosnian, Kurdish, Kashmiri, and Uyghur writing systems, the Arabic script can therefore be used in both abugida and abjad, although it is often strongly, erroneously connected to the latter. Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, to a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb. Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language, the term ʻAjamī, which comes from the Arabic root for foreign, has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages. There is evidence that writing Arabic in this set of letters influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant, Kazakh in China Kurdish in Northern Iraq and Northwest Iran. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes, arwi language is the language of Tamil Nadu Muslims. Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam, the script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is used in madrasas of the South Indian state of Kerala. It is similar to Chittagonian language in neighboring Bangladesh and sometimes using the Roman script. Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi, in some cases it can be seen in the signboards of shops or market stalls. In addition, some television programming uses Jawi, such as announcements, advertisements, news, social programs, Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin, West Africa Zarma language of the Songhay family
17.
National language
–
A national language is a that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with people and the territory they occupy. There is little consistency in the use of this term, one or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National and/or official languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions, the last is usually given the title of official language. Standard languages, such as Standard German, Standard French, and Standard Spanish, may serve as national, regional, National language and official language are best understood as two concepts or legal categories with ranges of meaning that may coincide, or may be intentionally separate. Stateless nations are not in the position to legislate an official language, some languages may be recognized popularly as national languages, while others may enjoy official recognition in use and/or promotion. Albanian is the language in Albania and Kosovo and a regional national language for parts of Macedonia. Arabic is the language in Algeria. Berber is also an official language, French has no official status but is widely used in education, business and the media. Andorras national language is Catalan, moreover Catalan is a language in several territories in Spain. Azerbaijan Azerbaijani language is the language in Azerbaijan. Australia has no language, but is largely monolingual with English being the de facto national language. A considerable proportion of first and second generation migrants are bilingual, according to Ethnologue, 81% of people spoke English at home, including L2 speakers. Other languages spoken at home included Chinese 2. 9%, Italian 1. 2%, Arabic 1. 1%, Greek 1%, Vietnamese 0. 9%, there were almost 400 languages spoken by Indigenous Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans. Only about 70 of these languages have survived and all but 30 of these are now endangered, bengali is the sole official language of Bangladesh. Bulgarian is the language in Bulgaria. Canadas official languages since the Official Languages Act of 1969 are English, Quebec nationalists consider Quebec French the national language of the Quebec nation. As well, two of Canadas northern territories legislate a variety of Indigenous languages, as these official languages are legislated at a territorial level, they can be construed as national languages. Notably the Cree language is spoken from Alberta to Labrador, Anishinaabemowin is spoken across central Canada, there are many languages spoken across China, with most people speaking one of several varieties of Chinese
18.
International Phonetic Alphabet
–
The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators. The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of language, phones, phonemes, intonation. IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a letter, or with a letter plus diacritics. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription, thus, /t/ is less specific than, occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, there are 107 letters,52 diacritics and these are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA. In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, for example, the sound was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French. However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, the idea of making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the International Phonetic Association Kiel Convention in 1989, a minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid central vowels and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives. The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap, apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces. Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology were created in 1990, the general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as do hard, finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as selectiveness. These are organized into a chart, the chart displayed here is the chart as posted at the website of the IPA. The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet, for this reason, most letters are either Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. Some letters are neither, for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ⟨ʔ⟩, has the form of a question mark
19.
Specials (Unicode block)
–
Specials is a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, five are assigned as of Unicode 9, U+FFFD � REPLACEMENT CHARACTER used to replace an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character U+FFFE <noncharacter-FFFE> not a character. FFFE and FFFF are not unassigned in the sense. They can be used to guess a texts encoding scheme, since any text containing these is by not a correctly encoded Unicode text. The replacement character � is a found in the Unicode standard at codepoint U+FFFD in the Specials table. It is used to indicate problems when a system is unable to render a stream of data to a correct symbol and it is usually seen when the data is invalid and does not match any character, Consider a text file containing the German word für in the ISO-8859-1 encoding. This file is now opened with an editor that assumes the input is UTF-8. The first and last byte are valid UTF-8 encodings of ASCII, therefore, a text editor could replace this byte with the replacement character symbol to produce a valid string of Unicode code points. The whole string now displays like this, f�r, a poorly implemented text editor might save the replacement in UTF-8 form, the text file data will then look like this, 0x66 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD 0x72, which will be displayed in ISO-8859-1 as f�r. Since the replacement is the same for all errors this makes it impossible to recover the original character, a better design is to preserve the original bytes, including the error, and only convert to the replacement when displaying the text. This will allow the text editor to save the original byte sequence and it has become increasingly common for software to interpret invalid UTF-8 by guessing the bytes are in another byte-based encoding such as ISO-8859-1. This allows correct display of both valid and invalid UTF-8 pasted together, Unicode control characters UTF-8 Mojibake Unicodes Specials table Decodeunicodes entry for the replacement character
20.
Unicode
–
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the worlds writing systems. As of June 2016, the most recent version is Unicode 9.0, the standard is maintained by the Unicode Consortium. Unicodes success at unifying character sets has led to its widespread, the standard has been implemented in many recent technologies, including modern operating systems, XML, Java, and the. NET Framework. Unicode can be implemented by different character encodings, the most commonly used encodings are UTF-8, UTF-16 and the now-obsolete UCS-2. UTF-8 uses one byte for any ASCII character, all of which have the same values in both UTF-8 and ASCII encoding, and up to four bytes for other characters. UCS-2 uses a 16-bit code unit for each character but cannot encode every character in the current Unicode standard, UTF-16 extends UCS-2, using one 16-bit unit for the characters that were representable in UCS-2 and two 16-bit units to handle each of the additional characters. Many traditional character encodings share a common problem in that they allow bilingual computer processing, Unicode, in intent, encodes the underlying characters—graphemes and grapheme-like units—rather than the variant glyphs for such characters. In the case of Chinese characters, this leads to controversies over distinguishing the underlying character from its variant glyphs. In text processing, Unicode takes the role of providing a unique code point—a number, in other words, Unicode represents a character in an abstract way and leaves the visual rendering to other software, such as a web browser or word processor. This simple aim becomes complicated, however, because of concessions made by Unicodes designers in the hope of encouraging a more rapid adoption of Unicode, the first 256 code points were made identical to the content of ISO-8859-1 so as to make it trivial to convert existing western text. For other examples, see duplicate characters in Unicode and he explained that he name Unicode is intended to suggest a unique, unified, universal encoding. In this document, entitled Unicode 88, Becker outlined a 16-bit character model, Unicode could be roughly described as wide-body ASCII that has been stretched to 16 bits to encompass the characters of all the worlds living languages. In a properly engineered design,16 bits per character are more than sufficient for this purpose, Unicode aims in the first instance at the characters published in modern text, whose number is undoubtedly far below 214 =16,384. By the end of 1990, most of the work on mapping existing character encoding standards had been completed, the Unicode Consortium was incorporated in California on January 3,1991, and in October 1991, the first volume of the Unicode standard was published. The second volume, covering Han ideographs, was published in June 1992, in 1996, a surrogate character mechanism was implemented in Unicode 2.0, so that Unicode was no longer restricted to 16 bits. The Microsoft TrueType specification version 1.0 from 1992 used the name Apple Unicode instead of Unicode for the Platform ID in the naming table, Unicode defines a codespace of 1,114,112 code points in the range 0hex to 10FFFFhex. Normally a Unicode code point is referred to by writing U+ followed by its hexadecimal number, for code points in the Basic Multilingual Plane, four digits are used, for code points outside the BMP, five or six digits are used, as required. Code points in Planes 1 through 16 are accessed as surrogate pairs in UTF-16, within each plane, characters are allocated within named blocks of related characters
21.
West Africa
–
West Africa, also called Western Africa and the West of Africa, is the westernmost subregion of Africa. Early human settlers from northern Holocene societies arrived in West Africa around 12,000 B. C, sedentary farming began in, or around the fifth millennium B. C, as well as the domestication of cattle. By 1500 B. C, ironworking technology allowed an expansion of productivity. Northern tribes developed walled settlements and non-walled settlements that numbered at 400, in the forest region, Iron Age cultures began to flourish, and an inter-region trade began to appear. The desertification of the Sahara and the change of the coast cause trade with upper Mediterranean peoples to be seen. Local leather, cloth, and gold also contributed to the abundance of prosperity for many of the following empires. Also, based on the archaeology of city of Kumbi Saleh in modern-day Mauritania, three great kingdoms were identified in Bilad al-Sudan by the ninth century. They included Ghana, Gao and Kanem, the Sosso Empire sought to fill the void, but was defeated by the Mandinka forces of Sundiata Keita, founder of the new Mali Empire. In the 15th century, the Songhai would form a new dominant state based on Gao, in the Songhai Empire, under the leadership of Sonni Ali, further east, Oyo arose as the dominant Yoruba state and the Aro Confederacy as a dominant Igbo state in modern-day Nigeria. The Kingdom of Nri was a West African medieval state in the present-day southeastern Nigeria, the Kingdom of Nri was unusual in the history of world government in that its leader exercised no military power over his subjects. The kingdom existed as a sphere of religious and political influence over a third of Igboland, the Eze Nri managed trade and diplomacy on behalf of the Nri people, and possessed divine authority in religious matters. The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today Western, established in the 15th century, the Oyo Empire grew to become one of the largest West African states. It rose through the organizational skills of the Yoruba, wealth gained from trade. The Benin Empire was an empire located in what is now southern Nigeria. Its capital was Edo, now known as Benin City, Edo and it should not be confused with the modern-day country called Benin, formerly called Dahomey. The Benin Empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in the hinterland of West Africa. Olfert Dapper, a Dutch writer, describing Benin in his book Description of Africa and its craft was the most adored and treasured bronze casting in the history of Africa. It was annexed by the British Empire in 1897 during the invasion, in the early 19th century, a series of Fulani reformist jihads swept across Western Africa
22.
Chad
–
Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east and it is the fifth largest country in Africa in terms of area. Chad has several regions, a zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad, the capital NDjamena is the largest city. Chads official languages are Arabic and French, Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. The religions of Chad are Islam, followed by Christianity, beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa, in 1960, Chad obtained independence under the leadership of François Tombalbaye. Resentment towards his policies in the Muslim north culminated in the eruption of a civil war in 1965. In 1979 the rebels conquered the capital and put an end to the souths hegemony, however, the rebel commanders fought amongst themselves until Hissène Habré defeated his rivals. He was overthrown in 1990 by his general Idriss Déby, since 2003 the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad. Unsustainable high birth rates and a lack of agriculture let the country persist in poverty, while many political parties are active, power lies firmly in the hands of President Déby and his political party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement. Chad remains plagued by violence and recurrent attempted coups détat. Chad is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, since 2003 crude oil has become the countrys primary source of export earnings, superseding the traditional cotton industry. In the 7th millennium BC, ecological conditions in the half of Chadian territory favored human settlement. Some of the most important African archaeological sites are found in Chad, mainly in the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region, for more than 2,000 years, the Chadian Basin has been inhabited by agricultural and sedentary people. The region became a crossroads of civilizations, the earliest of these were the legendary Sao, known from artifacts and oral histories. The Sao fell to the Kanem Empire, the first and longest-lasting of the empires that developed in Chads Sahelian strip by the end of the 1st millennium AD, two other states in the region, Baguirmi and Wadai Empire emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries. The power of Kanem and its successors was based on control of the trade routes that passed through the region
23.
Dialect
–
That happens, for example, across large parts of India or the Maghreb. Historically, it happened in various parts of Europe such as between Portugal, southern Belgium and southern Italy, and between Flanders and Austria. Leonard Bloomfield used the dialect area. It is analogous to a species in evolutionary biology. Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves, in this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of language features across a dialect continuum. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France pioneered the use of a trained fieldworker and these atlases typically consist of display maps, each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include maps, showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss, a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate, in a dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicate a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries, in other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified from one or more locations in a continuum, in such cases the local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are cited as examples. Conversely, a defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible. The choice of standard is determined by a political boundary. As a results, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, the choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. In the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, a standard was developed from local varieties within a continuum with Serbia to the north, the standard was deliberately based on varieties from the west of the republic that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian, it is the standard of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic, Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family
24.
Kano
–
Kano is the state capital of Kano State in Northern West, Nigeria. It is situated in the Sahelian geographic region, south of the Sahara, Kano is the commercial nerve center of Northern Nigeria and is the second largest city in Nigeria, after Lagos. The total area of Metropolitan Kano is now 499 square kilometres, the principal inhabitants of the city are the Hausa people. As in most parts of northern Nigeria, the Hausa language is spoken in Kano. The city is the capital of the Kano Emirate, the current emir, Muhammadu Sanusi II, was enthroned on 8 June 2014 after the death of Alhaji Ado Bayero, the thirtienth emir of Kano Emirate, on Friday,6 June 2014. The citys Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, the airport serving northern Nigeria, was named after politician Aminu Kano. Kano was originally known as Dala, after the hill, and was referred to as such as late as the end of the 15th century, the Kano Chronicle identifies Barbushe, a priest of a Dala Hill spirit, as the citys first settler. His grandson Gijimasu, the king, began building city walls at the foot of Dala Hill. His own son, Tsaraki, the king, completed them during his reign. In the 12th century Ali Yaji as King of Kano renounced his allegiance to the cult of Tsumburbura, accepted Islam, the reign of Yaji ensued an era of expansionism that saw Kano becoming the capital of a pseudo Habe Empire. In 1463 Muhammad Rumfa ascended the throne, during his reign, political pressure from the rising Songhai Empire forced him to take Auwa, the daughter of Askiyah the Great as his wife. She was to become the first female Madaki of Kano. Rumfa reformed the city, expanded the Sahelian Gidan Rumfa, and played a role in the further Islamization of the city, the Kano Chronicle attributes a total of twelve innovations to Rumfa. According to the Kano Chronicle, the thirty-seventh Sarkin Kano was Mohammed Sharef and his successor, Kumbari dan Sharefa, engaged in major battles with Sokoto. At the beginning of the 19th century, Fulani Islamic leader Usman dan Fodio led a jihad affecting much of central Sudan, in 1805 the last sultan of Kano was defeated by the Jobe Clan of the Fulani, and Kano became an Emirate of the Caliphate. Kano was the largest and most prosperous province of the empire and this was one of the last major slave societies, with high percentages of enslaved population long after the Atlantic slave trade had been cut off. Heinrich Barth, a German scholar who spent several years in northern Nigeria in the 1850s, estimated the percentage of slaves in Kano to be at least 50%, most of whom lived in slave villages. The city suffered famines from 1807–10, in the 1830s,1847,1855,1863,1873,1884, from 1893 until 1895, two rival claimants for the throne fought a civil war, or Basasa
25.
Misau
–
Misau is a Local Government Area of Bauchi State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Misau and it has an area of 1,226 km² and a population of 263,487 at the 2006 census. The postal code of the area is 750
26.
Borno State
–
Borno, also known as Borno State, is a state in north-eastern Nigeria. The state was formed in 1976 from the split of the North-Eastern State, until 1991 it contained what is now Yobe State. The state is dominated by the Kanuri, other smaller ethnic groups such as Babur and Marghi are also found in the southern part of the state. After Nigerian independence in 1960, Borno remained fairly autonomous until the expansion of the number of states in Nigeria to 12 in 1967, the emirs still exist, and serve as advisers to the local government. Mala Kachallah was elected governor of Borno State in 1999 under the flagship of the then APP later ANPP, ali Modu Sheriff was elected governor of Borno State in Nigeria in April 2003. He is a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ali Sheriff was the first governor in Borno state to win the seat two consecutive times. On 14 May 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Northeast Nigeria, including Borno State along with the states of Adamawa. This happened after fighting between Boko Haram and the armed forces killed as many as 200 people in the town of Baga. A spokesman for the Nigerian Armed Forces declared that the offensive would continue as long as it takes to achieve our objective of getting rid of insurgents from every part of Nigeria. Borno has been one of the most raided states in Nigeria by Boko Haram in the past 2 years, in July 2014, Borno state governor Kashim Shettima said that 176 teachers had been killed and 900 schools destroyed since 2011. After the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in April 2014, most schools in Borno State were closed and they were scheduled to reopen in November 2014. In November 2014, UNICEF reported it has increased its Community Management of Acute Malnutrition centres in Borno State from 5 to 67 and is planning to increase this to 100. In Borno State, the sector has suffered mostly because of the ongoing Boko Haram Insurgency since 2009. Religion in Borno State Islamist insurgency in Nigeria Aborisade, Oladimeji, Boko Haram Fighting for their Last Territorial Stronghold, midwestdiplomacy. com,23 April 2015
27.
Sokoto
–
Sokoto is a city located in the extreme northwest of Nigeria, near the confluence of the Sokoto River and the Rima River. As of 2006 it has a population of 427,760, Sokoto is the modern-day capital of Sokoto State. The name Sokoto is of Arabic origin, representing suk, market and it is also known as Sakkwato, Birnin Shaihu da Bello or Sokoto, Capital of Shaihu and Bello. Being the seat of the Sokoto Caliphate, the city is predominantly Muslim, the Sultan who heads the caliphate is effectively the spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims. Sokoto is in the dry Sahel surrounded by sandy savannah and isolated hills, the warmest months are February to April, where daytime temperatures can exceed 45 °C. The highest recorded temperature is 47.2 °C, which is also the highest recorded temperature in Nigeria, the rainy season is from June to October, during which showers are a daily occurrence. The showers rarely last long and are a far cry from the torrential showers known in many tropical regions. From late October to February, during the season, the climate is dominated by the harmattan wind blowing Sahara dust over the land. The dust dims the sunlight, thereby lowering temperatures significantly and also leading to the inconvenience of dust everywhere in the house, the regions lifeline for growing crops is the floodplains of the Sokoto-Rima river system, which are covered with rich alluvial soil. For the rest, the dryness of the region allows for few crops, millet perhaps being the most abundant, complemented by maize, rice, other cereals. Apart from tomatoes, few grow in the region. The low variety of foodstuffs available has resulted in the relatively dull local cuisine, in terms of vegetation, Sokoto falls within the savannah zone. This is an open tse-tse fly-free grassland suitable for cultivation of grain crops, rain starts late and ends early with mean annual rainfall ranging between 500 mm and 1,300 mm. There are two seasons in Sokoto, namely wet and dry. The dry season starts from October, and lasts up to April in some parts, the wet season on the other hand begins in most parts of the state in May and lasts up to September, or October. The harmattan, a dry, cold and fairly dusty wind is experienced in the state between November and February, heat is more severe in the state in March and April. But the weather in the state is always cold in the morning and hot in the afternoons, the topography of the state is dominated by the famous Hausa plain of northern Nigeria. The vast fadama land of the Sokoto-Rima River systems dissects the plain, there are also isolated hills and mountain ranges scattered all over the state
28.
Katsina
–
Katsina is a city, and a Local Government Area in northern Nigeria, and is the capital of Katsina State. Katsina is located some 260 kilometres east of the city of Sokoto, as of 2007, Katsinas estimated population was 459,022. The exact population of Katsina will be found in the incoming 2016 Nigerian Census, the city is the centre of an agricultural region producing groundnuts, cotton, hides, millet and guinea corn, and also has mills for producing peanut oil and steel. The city is largely Muslim and the population of the city is mainly from the Fulani, former Nigerian President Umaru YarAdua was a nobleman of Katsina. The Katsina Royal Palace ‘Gidan Korau’ is a complex located in the centre of the ancient city. It is a symbol of culture, history and traditions of ‘Katsinawa’, according to historical account, it was built in 1348 AD by Muhammadu Korau who is believed to be the first Muslim King of Katsina. This explains why it is known as ‘Gidan Korau’. It is one of the oldest and among the first generation Palaces in Hausaland, the rest are that of Daura, Kano and Zazzau. The Palace was encircled with a rampart ‘Ganuwar Gidan Sarki’, the main gate which leads to the Palace is known as ‘Kofar Soro’while the gate at the backyard is called ‘Kofar Bai’. The Emir’s residential quarters which is the epicenter of the Palace, is a large compound built in the typical Hausa traditional architecture, the current Emir of Katsina is Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir Usman. Katsina State has 34 local governments, the local government area of Katsina is an area of 142 km2, with a population of 318,459 at the 2006 census. The postal code of the area is 820, surrounded by city walls 21 kilometres in length, Katsina is believed to have been founded circa 1100. In pre-Islamic times, Katsinas semi-divine ruler was known as the Sarki, from the 17th to the 18th century, Katsina was the commercial heart of Hausaland and became the largest of the seven Hausa city-states. Katsina was conquered by the Fulani during the Fulani War in 1807, in 1903, the Emir, Abubakar dan Ibrahim, accepted British rule, which continued until Nigerian independence from Britain in 1960. The German explorer Friedrich Hornemann reached Katsina, the first Westerner to do so, the citys history of western-style education dates back to the early 1950s, when the first middle school in all of northern Nigeria was established. There are now several institutions of learning, including two universities, Umaru Musa Yaradua University and the private Katsina University. The city of Katsina is also home to a famous 18th-century mosque featuring the Gobarau Minaret, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Katsina has a hot semi-arid climate, abbreviated BSh on climate maps
29.
Adar
–
Adar is the sixth month of the civil year and the twelfth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a month of 29 days. The Month of Adar in the Holy Scriptures comprises in Esther 09,21, in leap years, it is preceded by a 30-day intercalary month named Adar Aleph and it is then itself called Adar Bet. Occasionally instead of Adar I and Adar II, Adar and VeAdar are used, Adar I and II occur during February–March on the Gregorian calendar. Based on a line in the Mishnah declaring that Purim must be celebrated in Adar II in a year, Adar I is considered the extra month. As a result, someone born in Adar during a non leap year would celebrate his birthday in Adar II during a leap year and this started on the 1st of Adar, six weeks before the Exodus. 1 Adar - Death of the Ibn Ezra 1 Adar - Death of the Shach 2 Adar - Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar,3 Adar - Second Temple completed 4 Adar - Maharams body ransomed 14 years after his death by Alexander ben Shlomo Wimpfen. 4 Adar - Death of Rabbi Leib Sarahs, a disciple of the Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, one of the hidden tzaddikim, Rabbi Leib spent his life wandering from place to place to raise money for the ransoming of imprisoned Jews and the support of other hidden tzaddikim. 5 Adar - Lulianos and Pappos voluntarily gave themselves up to be killed,7 Adar - Birth of Moses 7 Adar - Death of Moses 7 Adar - Death of Rebbe Isaac Taub of Kalov, founder of the Kalover Hasidic dynasty, and a student of Rabbi Leib Sarahs. 9 Adar - Academic dissension between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, erupted into a violent and destructive conflict over a vote on 18 legal matters leading to the death of 3,000 students. The day was declared a fast day by the Shulchan Aruch, however. 11 Adar - Death of Reb Eliezer Lipman, father of the prominent Chassidic Rebbes Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk,13 Adar - War between Jews and their enemies in Persia. 13 Adar - Yom Nicanor - The Maccabees defeated Syrian general Nicanor, in a battle fought four years after the Maccabees liberation of the Holy Land and the miracle of Hanukkah. The day was established as a community Purim for generations and to day the Washington Heights community does not recite Tachanun on this day. 20 Adar - Death of the Bach 21 Adar - Death of Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk 23 Adar - Mishkan assembled for the first time, Seven Days of Training begin. 23 Adar - Death of Yitzchak Meir Alter, first Rebbe of Ger 24 Adar - The Blood Libel, nevertheless, nearly a hundred years later the accusation was officially leveled against Mendel Beilis in Kiev. 25 Adar - Death of Nebuchadnezzar,25 Adar - Death of Rabbi Abraham Gershon of Kitov the brother-in-law and leading foe-turned-disciple of the Baal Shem Tov.27 Adar - Death of Zedekiah in Babylonian captivity. Meroduch, Nebuchadnezzars son and successor, freed him on the 27th of Adar,28 Adar - Talmudic holiday to commemorate the rescinding of a Roman decree against Torah study, ritual circumcision, and keeping the Shabbat
30.
Kebbi State
–
Kebbi is a state in north-western Nigeria with its capital at Birnin Kebbi. The state was created out of a part of Sokoto State in 1991, Kebbi State is bordered by Sokoto State, Niger State, Zamfara State, Dosso Region in the Republic of Niger and the nation of Benin. It has an area of 36,800 km². Kebbi is traditionally considered by Sarki mythology as the homeland of the Banza bakwai states, a major local event was the conquest by Songhai in the second half of the fifteenth century CE. Kebbi state was created out of the former Sokoto State on 17 August 1991, the State has a total population of 3,137,989 people as projected from the 1991 census, within 21 Local Government areas. The state has Sudan and sahel-savannah, the southern part is generally rocky with the Niger River traversing the state from Benin to Ngaski LGA. The northern part of the state is sandy with the Rima River passing through Argungu to Bagudo LGA where it empties into the Niger, agriculture is the main occupation of the people especially in rural areas, Crops produced are mainly grains, animal rearing and fishing are also common. Christianity and Islam are the dominant religions of the people, there are 225 political wards,3000 settlements and 1036 hard to reach settlements in the 21 Local Government Areas in the State. Kebbi State consists of 21 Local Government Areas, four emirate councils, the LGAs are as follows, Kebbi State is mainly populated by Hausa people, with some members of Lelna, Bussawa, Dukawa, Kambari and Kamuku ethnic communities. The people of Kebbi are predominantly Muslims who practice Islam as a religion, abubakar Atiku Bagudu since assuming office in 2015, has transformed Kebbi State from being a purely civil servant state and made it more industrialised. Kebbi State has become one of the producers of rice in Nigeria. Abubakar Bagudu then led a high level delegation from Kebbi to visit Lagos state in a bid to encourage interstate relations in the Agric sector. At the end of deliberations, A Memorandum of Understanding was signed, in addition, Officials of the Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc led by its Managing Director were not left out of this quest of exploring the agriculture potentials of Kebbi State. Abubakar Bagudu is also the Chairman, National Task Force on Rice, harris, P. G. Sokoto Provincial Gazetteer, Sokoto 1938. Hogben, S. J. and A. Kirk-Greene, The Emirates of Northern Nigeria, lange, Dierk, An Assyrian successor state in West Africa, The ancestral kings of Kebbi as ancient Near Eastern rulers, Anthropos,104,2, 359-382. Kebbi Emirate States of Nigeria Argungu Fishing Festival KebbiState. com Ethnic distribution in Nigeria
31.
Zamfara State
–
Zamfara is a state in northwestern Nigeria. Its capital is Gusau and its Governor is Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari, until 1996 the area was part of Sokoto State. Zamfara is peopled by Hausa and Fulani peoples, major groups of people include the Zamfarawa mainly peopling Anka, Gummi, Bukkuyum and Talata Mafara Local Governments areas. Gobirawa actually migrated from the Gobir Kingdom, burmawa are found in Bakura and Fulani peopled Bungudu, Maradun, Gusau and are scattered all over the State. In Tsafe, Bungudu and Maru Local Governments are mainly Katsinawa, Garewawa and Hadejawa, while Alibawa peopled Kaura Namoda and Zurmi. With an area of 38,418 square kilometres, it is bordered in the North by Niger republic, in the east it is bordered by Katsina State and to the West by Sokoto and Niger States. It has a population of 3,278,873 according to the 2006 census, Zamfara Kingdom was established in the 11th century and flourished up to 16th century as a city-state. Its capital has shifted with the fortunes of the kingdom from place to place like Dutsi and Birnin Zamfara. In the first half of the 18th century, its then capital Birnin Zamfara, was destroyed by the Gobir Kingdom, Zamfara had many centers of commerce and scholarship that attracted many scholars like the Yandoto city. It became part of the Sokoto Caliphate after the 1804 jihad by Usman dan Fodio, at the wake of British colonialism, the emerging town of Gusau became an important commercial and administrative center with road and rail networks passing through it. With the creation of States during the Gowon Administration, Zamfara Kingdom became part of the then North West State, the climatic condition of Zamfara is tropically warm with temperature rising up to 38 °C and above between March to May. Rainy season starts in late May to September while the season known as Harmattan lasts from December to February. Zamfara State consists of fourteen Local Government Areas and they are, Zamfara State is mainly populated by Hausa and Fulani people, with some members of Gwari, Kamuku, Kambari, Dukawa, Bussawa and Zabarma ethnic communities. Others include the Igbo, Yoruba, Kanuri, Nupe and Tiv, the state capital is an important commercial center with a heterogeneous population of people from all over Nigeria. As in all towns in Nigeria, all the major towns in Zamfara have a large population of other peoples from different parts of Nigeria. And also Home Of Shariah In 2009, artisanal gold mining became an important source of income in Zamfara State as worldwide gold prices rose dramatically, Islam is the principal and major religion of the state. Zamfara was the first state in Nigeria to introduce sharia law during the regime of Ahmad Sani Yerima the former Governor of the state. This is followed by Christianity which also had adherents, the least is the traditional religion which is still on the decline in favour of either Islam or Christianity
32.
Zazzau
–
The Zazzau, also known as the Zaria Emirate is a traditional state with headquarters in the city of Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. As of September 2015 the emir was Alhaji Shehu Idris and our most important source for the early history of Zazau is a chronicle composed in the early twentieth century from oral tradition. It tells the story of the foundation of the Hausa kingdoms by Bayajidda. According to this chronology, the original Hausa or Habe kingdom is said to date from the 11th century and this source also makes it one of the seven Hausa Bakwai states. Zazzau was a point for slaves to be delivered to the northern markets of Kano and Katsina. According to the history in the chronicle, Islam was introduced to the kingdom around 1456, but appears to have spread slowly, at several times in its history, Zazzau was subject to neighboring states such as Songhai, Bornu and Kwararafa. In December 1808 the kingdom was captured in the Fulani jihad, the Hausa ruler had escaped to Abuja, where he established a state now known as the Suleja Emirate, retaining his independence and the title of Sarkin Zazzau. The ruler of the modern Zazzau Emirate also uses the title Sarkin Zazzau or Sarkin Zaria, after the jihad, the culturally similar but pastoral or nomadic Fulani intermarried with the more settled Habe farmers, and the people of the Emirate today are generally known as Hausa-Fulani. The government of the Zaria Emirate differed from other emirates created at time in that offices were rarely hereditary. Rulers of the Hausa kingdom, Rulers of the independent Fulani emirate, Rulers of the independent Fulani emirate, nigerias emirs, Power behind the throne
33.
BBC
–
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
Niger (national status)
Nigeria
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Wikimedia Commons
Travel guide from Wikivoyage
Data from Wikidata
