Editing Laal language (section)

==Classification==
Laal remains [[unclassified language|unclassified]], although extensive [[Adamawa languages|Adamawa]] (specifically [[Bua languages|Bua]]) and to a lesser extent [[Chadic languages|Chadic]] influence is found. It is sometimes grouped with one of those two [[language family|language families]], and sometimes seen as a [[language isolate]].  Boyeldieu (1982) summarizes his view as "Its classification remains problematic; while it shows certain lexical, and no doubt morphological, traits with the Bua languages (Adamawa-13, [[Niger–Congo languages|Niger–Congo family]] of [[Joseph Greenberg|Joseph H. Greenberg]]), it differs from them radically in many ways of which some, ''a priori'', make one think of geographically nearby Chadic languages."  [[Roger Blench]] (2003), similarly, considers that "its vocabulary and morphology seem to be partly drawn from Chadic (i.e. [[Afroasiatic languages|Afro-Asiatic]]), partly from [[Adamawa languages|Adamawa]] (i.e. Niger–Congo) and partly from an unknown source, perhaps its original phylum, a now-vanished grouping from [[Central Africa]]."  It is the last possibility which attracts particular interest; if this proves true, Laal may be the only remaining window on the linguistic state of Central Africa before the expansion of the main [[Languages of Africa|African language]] families—Afro-Asiatic, [[Nilo-Saharan languages|Nilo-Saharan]], and Niger–Congo—into it.

Their immediate neighbors speak [[Bua language|Bua]], [[Niellim language|Niellim]], and [[Ndam language|Ndam]]. Laal contains a number of [[loanword]]s from Baguirmi, which for several centuries was the lingua franca of the region under the [[Baguirmi Empire]], and perhaps a dozen Chadic roots, which are not similar to the Chadic languages that currently neighbor Laal. In addition, almost all Laal speak Niellim as a second language, and 20%–30% of their vocabulary is cognate with Niellim, especially agricultural vocabulary (Boyeldieu 1977, Lionnet 2010). Like the [[Baguirmi language|Baguirmi]], the Laal are [[Muslim]]s; partly because of this, some [[Arabic language|Arabic]] loanwords are also found. However some 60% of the vocabulary, including most core vocabulary, cannot be identified with any known language family (Lionnet 2010). Indeed, some of the words cognate with Niellim, including some basic vocabulary, is not cognate with closely related Bua, suggesting that these are not Adamawa roots but loans in Niellim from the Laal substrate (Lionnet 2010). Pozdniakov (2010) believes Laal is a distinct branch of Niger–Congo with part of its pronominal system borrowed from a Chadic language like Kera.

Laal is grouped with the [[Chadic languages]] in an automated computational analysis ([[Automated Similarity Judgment Program|ASJP]] 4) by Müller et al. (2013), suggesting early contact with Chadic.<ref name="ASJP-4">Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ''[https://asjp.clld.org/static/WorldLanguageTree-004.zip ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)]''.</ref>