Dimmendaal

Anbessa Tefera and Peter Unseth consider the poorly attested Shabo language to be Nilo-Saharan, though unclassified within the family due to lack of data; Dimmendaal considers it to be a language isolate on current evidence.

Dimmendaal (who had originally supported their inclusion) believes the Kadu languages form a small family of their own.

Each of the proposed higher-order groups has been rejected by other researchers: Greenberg's Chari–Nile by Bender and Blench, and Bender's Core Nilo-Saharan by Dimmendaal and Blench.

Internal relationships Dimmendaal (2008) notes that Greenberg (1963) based his conclusion on sound evidence, and that the proposal as a whole has become more convincing in the decades since.

The extinct Meroitic language of ancient Kush has been accepted by linguists such as Rille, Dimmendaal, and Blench as Nilo-Saharan, though others argue for an Afroasiatic affiliation.

What remains are eight (Dimmendaal) to twelve (Bender) constituent families of no consensus arrangement.