The Koman languages are a small, close-knit family of languages located along the EthiopiaâÂÂSudan border with about 50,000 speakers. They are conventionally classified as part of the Nilo-Saharan family. However, due to the paucity of evidence, many scholars treat it as an independent language family. Among scholars who do accept its inclusion within Nilo-Saharan, opinions vary as to their position within it.
Koman languages in Ethiopia are in close contact with the Omotic Mao languages. In Ethiopia, some Koman-speaking groups also consider themselves to be ethnically Mao.
The Koman languages are:
The poorly known Shabo language (600 speakers) shows strong Koman influence, and it has been suggested (on little evidence) that it may be a Koman language. Gule is generally classified as Koman, but the evidence is as yet insufficient.
Otero's (2019: 28) internal classification of Koman:
Dimmendaal (2008) notes that mounting grammatical evidence has made the Nilo-Saharan proposal as a whole more sound since Greenberg proposed it in 1963 but that such evidence has not been forthcoming for Songhay, Gumuz, and Koman: "very few of the more widespread nominal and verbal morphological markers of Nilo-Saharan are attested in the Coman languages plus Gumuz ... Their genetic status remains debatable, mainly due to lack of more extensive data." (2008:843) And later, "In summarizing the current state of knowledge, ... the following language families or phyla can be identified: ... Mande, Songhai, Ubangian, Kadu, and the Coman languages plus Gumuz." (2008:844) However, Ahland (2010) reports that with better attestation, both Koman and Gumuz do appear to be Nilo-Saharan, and perhaps closest to each other.
Proto-Koman has been reconstructed by Lionel Bender (1983) and Otero (2019).
Comparison of numerals in individual languages: