1 To appear in Rainer Vossen and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (eds.), Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 11.2 Eastern Sudanic Gerrit J. Dimmendaal and Angelika Jakobi 11.2.1 Introduction In his continent-wide classification of African languages, Greenberg (1955) also established a genetic unit called “Eastern Sudanic”, which constituted one of the sixteen African language families identified by him at the time. Eastern Sudanic (ES) consisted of eight subgroups still recognized as valid branches of this family in more recent studies. In his 1963 classification, Greenberg added Nyangiyan and Temeinian (classified as isolates in Greenberg 1955) as additional subgroups. Moreover, the subgroups referred to as Nilotic and Great Lakes were combined in a single branch, called Nilotic (following the pioneering work of Köhler 1948). Greenberg (1955:109-14) already argued that ES is part of a larger genetic grouping which includes Kunama, Central Sudanic (CS), and Berta, for which he proposed the name “Macrosudanic”. This latter family was renamed “Chari-Nile” in Greenberg (1963), where it was established as one of the six primary branches of a new phylum established by him, Nilo-Saharan (NS; see chapter 11, this volume). Table 11.2-x1 presents the eleven ten subgroups constituting ES according to Greenberg (1963), and also gives their current names.