The (West) Atlantic languages¹ of West Africa are a subgroup of Niger-Congo language family. These languages are generally spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though nomadic Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in significant concentrations across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria and Cameroon. Fula and the Wolof language of Senegal are the largest Atlantic languages with several million speakers each; other significant members include Serer and the Jola dialect cluster of Senegal and Temne in Sierra Leone. Many Atlantic languages exhibit consonant mutation, and most have a noun class system similar to that in the distantly related Bantu languages. Some members are tonal, while others have pitch accent systems. The basic word order tends to be SVO. West Africa is the region of western Africa generally considered to include these countries: Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte dIvoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Chad, Mauritania, and... Map showing the distribution of Niger-Congo languages The Niger-Congo languages are probably the largest group of the world in terms of different languages. ... The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one_fifth of its surface. ... The Fula language is a language of West Africa, spoken by the Fula people from Senegal to Cameroon and Sudan. ... The Sahel (from Arabic ساحل sahil for shore or border) is the boundary zone in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the more fertile region to the south, known as the Sudan (not to be confused with the country of the same name). ... Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania. ... Temne (also known as Themne or Timne) is a Southern Atlantic language spoken in Sierra Leone by about one million first language speakers, or some 30% of the country’s population. ... Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. ... In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once. ... Bantu is a language family that belongs to the Niger-Congo group. ... This article or section uses Ruby annotation. ... For pitch accent in music, see: accent (music). ... Word order, in linguistic typology, refers to the order in which words appear in sentences across different languages. ...

The Atlantic language family

The Atlantic family was first identified by Sigmund Koelle in 1854. In the early 20th century, Carl Meinhof claimed that Fula was a Hamitic language, but August von Klingenhaben and Joseph Greenberg's work conclusively established Fula's close relationship with Wolof and Serer. W. A. A. Wilson notes that the validity of the family as a whole rests on much weaker evidence, but linguists generally accept Atlantic as valid. Similarly, most linguists accept Atlantic's inclusion in the Niger-Congo family, based on suggestive evidence such as a shared noun class system; nevertheless, comparative work on Niger-Congo as a whole is still in its infancy. Proposed subclassifications of Niger-Congo (usually based on lexicostatistics) generally claim that Atlantic is a rather divergent branch of the family, but less so than Mande and Kordofanian. 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof (July 23, 1857_February 11, 1944) was a German linguist. ... The term Hamitic refers to peoples traditionally believed to have been descended from Ham, one of Noahs sons. ... Joseph Greenberg may refer to one of The linguist Joseph H. Greenberg The director of Yiddish-language films, better known as Joseph Green This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Map showing the distribution of Niger-Congo languages The Niger-Congo languages are probably the largest group of the world in terms of different languages. ... The comparative method (in linguistics) is a method used to detect genetic relationships between languages and to establish a consistent relationship hypothesis by reconstructing: the common ancestor of the languages in question, a plausible sequence of regular changes by which the historically known languages can be derived from that common... In linguistics, the technique of glottochronology is used to estimate the time of divergence of two related languages. ... Mande (or Manding) is the name of a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka and Bambara. ... Several Kordofanian languages are spoken in the Nuba hills of Kordofan, in Sudan. ...

David Sapir proposed a tentative subclassification of Atlantic involving a three way split between a northern group, a southern group, and the highly divergent Bijago language spoken in the Bissagos Islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. This was adapted by (Wilson 1989) and by Ethnologue: The Bissagos Islands or Bijagós Archipelago are a group of some eighteen major islands and dozens more smaller ones in the Atlantic Ocean. ... The Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with native language biblical texts. ...

• Atlantic
  • Bijago - spoken in Guinea-Bissau
  • Northern - with the exception of Fula, spoken mainly in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea
    • Senegambian
      • Fula-Wolof: Wolof and Fula (many varieties and alternate names)
      • Serer
    • Cangin: Lehar, Palor, Ndut, Saafi-Saafi, and Noon
    • Bak
      • Balant-Ganja: Balanta-Ganja and Balanta-Kentohe
      • Jola
        • Bayot
        • Jola Proper: Kuwaataay, Karon and Mlomp, and the Jola (Diola) languages (large dialect continuum)
      • Manjaku-Papel: Mankanya, Mandjak, and Papel
    • Eastern Senegal-Guinea
      • Banyun: Bainouk-Gunyuño, Bainouk-Samik, and Bainouk-Gunyaamolo
      • Tenda: Biafada, Basari, Wamei, Badjara, and Budik
      • Nun: Kasanga and Kobiana
    • Mbulungish-Nalu: Baga Mboteni, Mbulungish, and Nalu
  • Southern - spoken mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia
    • Limba
    • Mel
      • Bullom-Kissi
        • Bullom: Bom, Bullom So (Mmani), Sherbro, and Krim
        • Kissi
      • Gola
      • Temne: Temne, Landoma and the Baga languages

Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania. ... The Fula language is a language of West Africa, spoken by the Fula people from Senegal to Cameroon and Sudan. ... The Karon language is an endangered language of Senegal and Gambia. ... The Mlomp language, also known as Gulompaay, is spoken in Senegal. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... The Bom language is an endangered language of Sierra Leone. ... The Bullom So language, also called Mmani or Mandingi, is an endangered language spoken near the border between Guinea and Sierra Leone. ... The Sherbro language (also known as Southern Bullom, Shiba, Amampa, Mampa, and Mampwa) is an endangered language of Sierra Leone. ... The Krim language (also know as Kim, Kimi, Kirim, or Kittim) is an endangered language of Sierra Leone. ... Temne (also known as Themne or Timne) is a Southern Atlantic language spoken in Sierra Leone by about one million first language speakers, or some 30% of the country’s population. ... The Baga languages are five related languages spoken in the coastal region of Guinea by the Baga. ...

Consonant mutation

Many Atlantic languages exhibit consonant mutation, a phenomenon in which the intitial consonant of a word change depending on its morphological and/or syntactic environment. In Fula, for example, the initial consonant of many nouns changes depending on whether it is singular or plural: Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ...

Noun classes

Atlantic languages have noun class systems similar to those found in other Niger-Congo languages, most famously the Bantu languages. Bantu noun classes are marked with prefixes, and linguists generally believe that this reflects the proto-Niger-Congo system. In Atlantic, however, some languages, such as Temne, use prefixes while others, such as Fula, have noun class suffixes. Joseph Greenberg argued that the suffixed forms arose from independent post-posed determiners that agreed with the noun class. In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once. ... Bantu is a language family that belongs to the Niger-Congo group. ... Determiners are words which quantify or identify nouns. ...

CL-Noun CL-Det > CL-Noun-CL > Noun-CL

In fact, some Atlantic languages, such as Serer, do mark noun class with both a prefix and a suffix.

Notes

Note 1: "West Atlantic" is the more traditional usage, following Diedrich Hermann Westermann; "Atlantic" is more typical in recent work, particularly since (Bendor-Samuel 1989). Diedrich Hermann Westermann (June 24, 1875-May 31, 1956) was a German missionary and linguist. ...

References

• Sapir, David (1971). West Atlantic: An inventory of the languages, their noun class systems and consonant alternations. Current Trends in Linguistics 7:45-112. The Hague: Mouton.
• Wilson, W. A. A. (1989). Atlantic. In John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.), The Niger-Congo Languages, pp. 81-104.

External links

• Linguisitic and folklore material from Kujamaat Joola (http://etext.virginia.edu/african/Kujamaat/)
• UCLA page on Wolof (http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/aflang/Wolof/wolofInfo.html)
• Ethnologue report for Atlantic (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=73)