Map showing the distribution of Niger-Congo languages

The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question is complicated by ambiguity in what is a distinct language. Almost all of the most widely spoken indigenous languages of Subsaharan Africa belong to this group. A common property of many Niger-Congo languages is the use of a noun class system. Map showing the distribution of the Niger-Congo languages. ... Map showing the distribution of the Niger-Congo languages. ... Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families (families hereforth). ... Africa is the worlds second-largest continent and 3rd most populous. ... Sub-Saharan Africa, Africa south of the Sahara Desert, is the term used to describe those countries of Africa that are not part of North Africa. ... 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. ...

Joseph Greenberg was the first to identify the boundaries of this family, which he called Niger-Congo, in a series of articles published between 1949 and 1954. Just before these articles were collected in final book form (The Languages of Africa) in 1963, he amended his classification by adding Kordofanian as a branch co-ordinate with Niger-Congo as a whole; consequently, the family was renamed Niger-Kordofanian. Bennet and Sterk (1977) presented a reclassification based on lexicostatistics that laid the foundation for the influential classification in Bendor-Samuel 1989. Kordofanian was thought to be be one of several primary branches rather than being co-ordinate to the phylum as a whole, prompting re-introduction of the term 'Niger-Congo', which is in current use among linguists. Many classifications continue to place Kordofanian as the most distant branch, but mainly due to negative evidence (fewer lexical correspondances), rather than positive evidence that the other languages form a valid geneological group. Likewise, Mande is often assumed to be the second-most distant branch based on its loss of the Niger-Congo noun-class system, rather than any validity of the rest of the family as a group. 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. ... The Languages of Africa is a seminal 1963 book of essays by Joseph Greenberg, in which he sets forth a genetic classification of African languages that, with some changes, continues to be the most commonly used one today. ...

The major languages or subgroups belonging to Niger-Congo are,

• Kordofanian languages: spoken in southern Sudan, around the Nuba Hills.
• Mande: spoken in West Africa; includes Bambara, the main language spoken in Mali, as well as Soninke, a language spoken mainly in Mali but also in Senegal and Mauritania.
• Atlantic: includes Wolof, spoken in Senegal, and Fula, a language spoken across the Sahel.
• Ijoid in Nigeria, including Ijo and Defaka.
• Kwa: includes Akan, spoken in Ghana and the Gbe languages, spoken in Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, of which Ewe is best known.
• Benue-Congo, including among others:
  • Bantu: a very large group, includes Swahili (Kiswahili).
  • The Yoruba and Igbo languages, spoken in Nigeria.
• Dogon, spoken in Mali
• Kru: spoken in West Africa, include Bété, Nyabwa, and Dida.
• Gur: Including Dagbani in Northern Ghana, they are spoken among others in Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Burkina Faso and Mali.
• Adamawa-Ubangi: includes Sango, spoken in the Central African Republic.

Some linguists consider the twenty or so Kordofanian languages to form part of the Niger-Congo family, while others consider them and Niger-Congo to form two separate branches of a Niger-Kordofanian language family. There is also an on-going debate as to whether the Mande languages should be included in the Niger-Congo language family or the Nilo-Saharan language family. Others are sceptical about both Niger-Kordofanian and Niger-Congo itself. Several Kordofanian languages are spoken in the Nuba hills of Kordofan, in Sudan. ... Mandé is the name of an ethnic group or nation, as well as a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mendé, Yacouba, and Vai. ... Bambara, also known as Bamanankan in the language itself, is a language spoken in Mali by as many six million people. ... Also called Sarakole, Seraculeh, or Serahuli, the Soninke are a Mandé people who descend from the Bafour, and are closely related to the Imraguen of Mauritania. ... The (West) Atlantic languages1 of West Africa are a subgroup of Niger-Congo language family. ... 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 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). ... The Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ijaw (Izon, Ijo) and the Defaka (Afakani) in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, totalling about 1. ... The Defaka (sometimes called Afakani) are a small ethnic group of south-western Nigeria, numbering less than a thousand people. ... The Kwa languages are spoken in the south-eastern part of Côte dIvoire, in Ghana, Togo and Benin, and the south-Western corner of Nigeria. ... The Akan language belongs to the Kwa language family. ... The Gbe languages form a cluster of about 20 related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. ... Ewe (pronounced /eβe/) is a Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana and Togo by approximately three million people (Capo 1991). ... The Benue-Congo group of languages constitutes the largest branch of the Niger-Congo language family, both in terms of sheer number of languages, of which 938 are known (not counting mere dialects), and in terms of speakers, numbering perhaps 550 million. ... Bantu is a language family that belongs to the Niger-Congo group. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for a discussion of the nomenclature) is a Bantu language widely spoken in East Africa. ... Kiswahili is an alternative name for the Swahili language, derived from the expression lugha ya Kiswahili, which is what speakers of Swahili call their language. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Igbo is a language spoken in Nigeria by about 18 million speakers (the Ibo), especially in the southeastern region once identified as Biafra. ... The Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon in Mali. ... The Kru languages belong to the Niger-Congo language family and are spoken in the area ranging from the south-east of Liberia to the east of Côte dIvoire. ... 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... The Bété languages are spoken in south-eastern Côte dIvoire. ... The Nyabwa (or Nyaboa) language is a Kru language spoken in Côte dIvoire. ... Dida is a language spoken in Côte dIvoire. ... The Gur languages belong to the Niger-Congo languages. ... Dagbani is a language spoken by some half million people in Ghana, where it is the most common language in the Northern regions. ... The Adamawa-Ubangi languages are spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, southern Central African Republic, by a total of about 12 million people. ... Sango (also spelt Sangho) is the primary language spoken in the Central African Republic: it has 5 million second-language speakers, but only 400,000 native speakers, mainly in the towns. ... Several Kordofanian languages are spoken in the Nuba hills of Kordofan, in Sudan. ... The Niger-Kordofanian language family was proposed by Joseph H. Greenberg in his 1966 book Languages of Africa. ... Map showing the distribution of the Nilo-Saharan languages. ...

The Laal, Mpre, and Jalaa languages are often linked with Niger-Congo, but have yet to be conclusively classified. The Laal language is a still-unclassified language spoken by about 300 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River, called Gori (lá), Damtar (ɓual), and Mailao. ... Mpre is a language spoken or once spoken in the village of Butie in Ghana, near the confluence of the Black and White Voltas. ... Jalaa (autonym bàsàrə̀n dà jàlààbè̩) is an endangered language of northeastern Nigeria (Loojaa settlement in Balanga Local Government Area, Bauchi State), of uncertain (possibly Niger-Congo) origins. ...

Sub-classification

An alternate classification, based on Blench, follows. (Families are in bold; single languages in italics.)

Niger-Congo

• Kordofanian
• Mande
• West Atlantic
• Volta-Congo
  • ? Ijaw
  • Dogon
  • North Volta-Congo (= Volta-Kru)
    • Kru
    • Savannas (= Greenberg's Voltaic and Adamawa-Ubanguian)
      • Ubangian (e.g. Gbaya, Sango, Banda, Zande)
      • ? Senufo
      • Gur I (e.g. Mossi, Dagbani, Ditamari)
      • Gur II (e.g. Kabre, Dan, Doghose)
      • Kulango
      • Bariba
      • Vyemo
      • Tyefo
      • Natyoro
      • Tusya (= Win)
      • Chamba-Mumuye
      • Mbum
      • Wadja-Bambuka
      • Ba
      • Kam
  • South Volta-Congo (= Benue-Kwa)
    • Kwa
      • Nyo (e.g. Akan)
      • Ka (e.g. Gbe)
    • West Benue-Congo (= Ogun)
      • Nupe
      • "DEAI"
        • Defoid (e.g. Yoruba)
        • Edoid (e.g. Benin)
        • Akoko
        • Igboid
      • Ayere
      • Akpes
    • (East) Benue-Congo
      • ? Ukaan
      • Platoid (e.g. Bauchi, Jukun, Birom)
      • Bantoid-Cross
        • ? Bendi
        • Cross River (e.g. Calabar, Ogoni, Abua, Efik)
        • Bantoid (e.g. Jarawa, Tiv, Bantu)

References

• Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger-Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. (1963) The Languages of Africa. Indiana Univ. Press.
• Bendor-Samuel, John & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) (1989) The Niger-Congo Languages — A classification and description of Africa's largest language family. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
• Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger-Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) African Languages - An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11—42.

External links

• An Evaluation of Niger-Congo Classification, Kenneth Olson
• Ethnologue: Niger-Congo Family Tree