The Sabaki languages of Comoros

We determine by means of quantitative methods the external and the internal cladistics of the four Bantu varieties spoken in the Comoros archipelago. With external cladistics we mean the phylogenetic position of the four varieties with respect to the Sabaki and Makhuwa languages spoken along the South-Eastern coast of Africa. During the years consensus has been reached that Comorian Bantu languages belong to the Sabaki group, but they are different from Swahili, our findings confirm this conclusion. With internal cladistics we mean the mutual classification of these four Comorian languages. Conventionally they are divided into two groups: the Eastern group composed of Shindzwani and Shimaore and the Western group composed of Shimwali and Shingazidja, our results point to a rather different classification with Shingazidja isolated from the other three. Finally, the phylogenetic tree of ten East African languages and the four Comorian ones, which is also constructed, shows a clear bi-partition with Makhuwa languages on one branch and Sabaki languages (included Comorian languages) on the other.