The inhabitants of several oases, notably Igli, Ouakda, Lahmar and Boukais, speak Berber languages, while the rest speak Arabic; in one oasis, Tabelbala, a Songhay language, Korandje, continues to be spoken.
While French has been the cross cultural language of choice since independence, there are eight other official languages spoken in Niger, which include Hausa, Zarma/Songhai, Tamajeq, Fulfulde, Kanuri, Arabic, Gurmantche, and Toubou.
Diedrich Hermann Westermann, a missionary and linguist, hesitated between assigning it to Gur or considering it an isolate, and Maurice Delafosse grouped it with Mande.
The majority of manuscripts were written in Arabic, but some were also in local languages, including Songhay and Tamasheq.
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