Niger–Congo languages
Encyclopedia
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 about what constitutes a distinct language. Most 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. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba
, Igbo
, Fula
and Shona
and Zulu
. The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is Swahili
.
attempted a careful classification, the groupings of which in quite a number of cases correspond to modern groupings. An early sketch of the extent of Niger–Congo as one language family can be found in Koelle's observation, echoed in Bleek
(1856), that the Atlantic languages used prefixes just like many Southern African languages. Subsequent work of Bleek, and some decades later the comparative work of Meinhof
, solidly established Bantu
as a linguistic unit.
In many cases, wider classifications employed a blend of typological and racial criteria. Thus, Friedrich Müller
, in his ambitious classification (1876–88), separated the 'Negro' and Bantu languages. Likewise, the Africanist Karl Richard Lepsius
considered Bantu to be of African origin, and many 'Mixed Negro languages' as products of an encounter between Bantu and intruding Asiatic languages.
In this period a relation between Bantu and languages with Bantu-like (but less complete) noun class systems began to emerge. Some authors saw the latter as languages which had not yet completely evolved to full Bantu status, whereas others regarded them as languages which had partly lost original features still found in Bantu. The Bantuist Meinhof made a major distinction between Bantu and a 'Semi-Bantu' group which according to him was originally of the unrelated Sudanic stock.
Westermann
, a pupil of Meinhof, set out to establish the internal classification of the then Sudanic languages
. In a 1911 work he established a basic division between 'East' and 'West'. A historical reconstruction of West Sudanic was published in 1927, and in his 1935 'Charakter und Einteilung der Sudansprachen' he conclusively established the relationship between Bantu and West Sudanic.
Joseph Greenberg
took Westermann's work as a starting-point for his own classification. In a series of articles published between 1949 and 1954, he argued that Westermann's 'West Sudanic' and Bantu formed a single genetic family, which he named Niger–Congo; that Bantu constituted a subgroup of the Benue–Congo branch; that Adamawa–Eastern, previously not considered to be related, was another member of this family; and that Fula belonged to the West Atlantic languages. 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, he renamed the family Congo–Kordofanian, later Niger–Kordofanian. Greenberg's work, though initially greeted with scepticism, became the prevailing view among scholars.
Bennet and Sterk (1977) presented an internal reclassification based on lexicostatistics that laid the foundation for the regrouping in Bendor-Samuel
(1989). Kordofanian was thought to be one of several primary branches rather than being coordinate 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 correspondences), rather than positive evidence that the other languages form a valid genealogical group. Likewise, Mande is often assumed to be the second-most distant branch based on its lack of the noun-class system prototypical of the Niger–Congo family. Other branches lacking any trace of the noun-class system are Dogon and Ijaw, whereas the Talodi branch of Kordofanian does have cognate noun classes, suggesting that Kordofanian is also not a unitary group.
, probably starting with Westermann's comparative work on the 'Sudanic' family in which 'Eastern Sudanic
' (now classified as Nilo-Saharan) and 'Western Sudanic' (now classified as Niger–Congo) were united. Gregersen (1972) proposed that Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan be united into a larger phylum which he termed Kongo–Saharan. His evidence was mainly based on the uncertainty in the classification of Songhay
, morphological resemblances, and lexical similarities. A more recent proponent was Roger Blench
(1995), who puts forward phonological, morphological and lexical evidence for uniting Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan in a Niger–Saharan phylum, with special affinity between Niger–Congo and Central Sudanic
. However, fifteen years later his views had changed, with Blench (2011) proposing instead that the noun-classifier system of Central Sudanic, commonly reflected in a tripartite general–singulative–plurative number system, triggered the development or elaboration of the noun-class system of the Atlantic–Congo languages, with tripartite number marking surviving in the Plateau
and Gur languages
of Niger–Congo, and the lexical similarities being due to loans.
change. Verbs are composed of a root followed by one or more extensional suffixes. Nouns consist of a root originally preceded by a noun class prefix of (C)V- shape which is often eroded by phonological change.
, alveolar
, palatal
, velar
, and labial-velar
.
Many Niger–Congo languages show vowel harmony
based on the feature [ATR] (advanced tongue root
). In this type of vowel harmony, the position of the root of the tongue is the phonetic basis for the distinction between two harmonizing sets of vowels. In its fullest form, this type involves two classes, each of five vowels: [+ATR] /i, e, ə, o, u/ and [-ATR] /ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ/. Vowel inventories of this type are still found in some branches of Niger–Congo, for example in the Ghana Togo Mountain languages
. To date, many languages show reductions from this fuller system. The fact that ten vowels have been reconstructed for proto-Atlantic, proto-Ijoid and possibly proto-Volta–Congo leads Williamson (1989:23) to the hypothesis that the original vowel inventory of Niger–Congo was a full ten-vowel system. On the other hand, Stewart in recent comparative work reconstructs a seven vowel system for his proto-Potou-Akanic-Bantu.
s in Niger–Congo. In his reconstruction of proto-Volta–Congo, Steward (1976) postulates that nasal consonant
s have originated under the influence of nasal vowels; this hypothesis is supported by the fact that there are several Niger–Congo languages that have been analysed as lacking nasal consonants altogether. Languages like this have nasal vowels accompanied with complementary distribution
between oral and nasal consonants before oral and nasal vowels. Subsequent loss of the nasal/oral contrast in vowels may result in nasal consonants becoming part of the phoneme inventory. In all cases reported to date, the bilabial /m/ is the first nasal consonant to be phonologized. Niger–Congo thus invalidates two common assumptions about nasals: that all languages have at least one primary nasal consonant, and that if a language has only one primary nasal consonant it is /n/.
Niger–Congo languages commonly show fewer nasalized than oral vowels. Kasem
, a language with a ten-vowel system employing ATR vowel harmony, has seven nasalized vowels. Similarly, Yoruba
has seven oral vowels and only five nasal ones. However, the recently discovered language of Zialo
has nasal equivalent for each of its seven vowels.
. A typical Niger–Congo tone system involves two or three contrastive level tones. Four level systems are less widespread, and five level systems are rare. Only a few Niger–Congo languages are non-tonal; Swahili is perhaps the best known, but within the Atlantic
branch some others are found. Proto-Niger–Congo is thought to have been a tone language with two contrastive levels. Synchronic and comparative-historical studies of tone systems show that such a basic system can easily develop more tonal contrasts under the influence of depressor consonants or through the introduction of a downstep. Languages which have more tonal levels tend to use tone more for lexical and less for grammatical contrasts.
ification, traces of which can be found in every branch of the family but Mande, Ijoid, Dogon, and the Katla and Rashad branches of Kordofanian. These noun-classification systems are somewhat analogous to grammatical gender
in other languages, but there are often a fairly large number of classes (often 10 or more), and the classes may be male human/female human/animate/inanimate, or even completely gender-unrelated categories such as places, plants, abstracts, and groups of objects. For example, in Bantu, the Swahili language is called Kiswahili, while the Swahili people are Waswahili. Likewise, in Ubangian, the Zande language is called Pazande, while the Zande people are called Azande.
In the Bantu languages, where noun classification is particularly elaborate, it typically appears as prefixes, with verbs and adjectives marked according to the class of the noun they refer to. For example, in Swahili, watu wazuri wataenda is 'good (zuri) people (tu) will go (ta-enda).
suffix -na (Swahili penda 'to love', pendana 'to love each other'; also applicative pendea 'to love for' and causative
pendeza 'to please').
, Ijoid
and Dogon
. As a result, there has been quite some debate as to the basic word order of Niger–Congo.
Whereas Claudi (1993) argues for SVO on the basis of existing SVO>SOV grammaticalization paths (SOV>SVO is never found), Gensler (1997) points out that the notion of 'basic word order' is problematic as it excludes structures with, for example, auxiliaries
.
However, the structure SC-OC-VbStem (Subject concord, Object concord, Verb stem) found in the "verbal complex" of the SVO Bantu languages suggests an earlier SOV pattern (where the subject and object were at least represented by pronouns).
Noun phrase
s in most Niger–Congo languages are characteristically noun-initial, with adjective
s, numerals
, demonstrative
s and genitives all coming after the noun. The major exceptions are found in the western areas where verb-final word order predominates and genitives precede nouns, though other modifiers still come afterwards. Degree words almost always follow adjectives, and except in verb-final languages adposition
s are prepositional.
The verb-final languages of the Mende region have two quite unusual word order characteristics. Although verbs follow their direct objects, oblique adpositional phrases (like "in the house", "with timber") typically come after the verb, creating a SOVX word order. Also noteworthy in these languages is the prevalence of internally-headed and correlative relative clause
s, in both of which the head occurs inside the relative clause rather than the main clause.
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, and yet others do not accept Kordofanian as a single group. Senufo has been placed traditionally within Gur, but is now usually considered an early off-shoot from Atlantic–Congo.
The Laal
, Mpre
, and Jalaa
languages are often linked with Niger–Congo, but have yet to be conclusively classified.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
, and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
'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 about what constitutes a distinct language. Most 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
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
system. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
, Igbo
Igbo language
Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin...
, Fula
Fula language
The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
and Shona
Shona language
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...
and Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
. The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
.
Early classifications
Niger–Congo as it is known today was only gradually recognized as a unity. In early classifications of African languages, one of the principal criteria used to distinguish different groupings was the languages' use of prefixes to classify nouns, or the lack thereof. A major advance came with the work of Koelle, who in his 1854 Polyglotta AfricanaPolyglotta Africana
Polyglotta Africana is a study written by the German missionary Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle in 1854 in which he compared 156 African languages...
attempted a careful classification, the groupings of which in quite a number of cases correspond to modern groupings. An early sketch of the extent of Niger–Congo as one language family can be found in Koelle's observation, echoed in Bleek
Wilhelm Bleek
Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek was a German linguist. His work included A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages and his great project jointly executed with Lucy Lloyd: The Bleek and Lloyd Archive of ǀxam and !kun texts.-Biography:Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek was born in Berlin on 8...
(1856), that the Atlantic languages used prefixes just like many Southern African languages. Subsequent work of Bleek, and some decades later the comparative work of Meinhof
Carl Meinhof
Carl Friedrich Michael Meinhof was a German linguist and one of the first linguists to study African languages.-Early years and career:...
, solidly established Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
as a linguistic unit.
In many cases, wider classifications employed a blend of typological and racial criteria. Thus, Friedrich Müller
Friedrich Müller (linguist)
Friedrich Müller was an Austrian linguist and ethnologist who originated the term Hamito-Semitic languages for what are now called the Afro-Asiatic languages.-Biography:He studied at the University of Göttingen...
, in his ambitious classification (1876–88), separated the 'Negro' and Bantu languages. Likewise, the Africanist Karl Richard Lepsius
Karl Richard Lepsius
Karl Richard Lepsius was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist and linguist and pioneer of modern archaeology.-Background:...
considered Bantu to be of African origin, and many 'Mixed Negro languages' as products of an encounter between Bantu and intruding Asiatic languages.
In this period a relation between Bantu and languages with Bantu-like (but less complete) noun class systems began to emerge. Some authors saw the latter as languages which had not yet completely evolved to full Bantu status, whereas others regarded them as languages which had partly lost original features still found in Bantu. The Bantuist Meinhof made a major distinction between Bantu and a 'Semi-Bantu' group which according to him was originally of the unrelated Sudanic stock.
Westermann, Greenberg and beyond
Diedrich Hermann Westermann
Diedrich Hermann Westermann was a German missionary, Africanist, and linguist. He substantially extended and revised the work of Carl Meinhof, his teacher, although he rejected some of Meinhof's theories only implicitly...
, a pupil of Meinhof, set out to establish the internal classification of the then Sudanic languages
Sudanic languages
In early twentieth century classification of African languages, Sudanic languages was a generic term for African languages spoken in the Sahel belt from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west.-Scope:...
. In a 1911 work he established a basic division between 'East' and 'West'. A historical reconstruction of West Sudanic was published in 1927, and in his 1935 'Charakter und Einteilung der Sudansprachen' he conclusively established the relationship between Bantu and West Sudanic.
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
took Westermann's work as a starting-point for his own classification. In a series of articles published between 1949 and 1954, he argued that Westermann's 'West Sudanic' and Bantu formed a single genetic family, which he named Niger–Congo; that Bantu constituted a subgroup of the Benue–Congo branch; that Adamawa–Eastern, previously not considered to be related, was another member of this family; and that Fula belonged to the West Atlantic languages. Just before these articles were collected in final book form (The Languages of Africa
The Languages of Africa
The Languages of Africa is a 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...
) in 1963, he amended his classification by adding Kordofanian as a branch co-ordinate with Niger–Congo as a whole; consequently, he renamed the family Congo–Kordofanian, later Niger–Kordofanian. Greenberg's work, though initially greeted with scepticism, became the prevailing view among scholars.
Bennet and Sterk (1977) presented an internal reclassification based on lexicostatistics that laid the foundation for the regrouping in Bendor-Samuel
John Bendor-Samuel
John Theodore Bendor-Samuel was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African linguistics...
(1989). Kordofanian was thought to be one of several primary branches rather than being coordinate 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 correspondences), rather than positive evidence that the other languages form a valid genealogical group. Likewise, Mande is often assumed to be the second-most distant branch based on its lack of the noun-class system prototypical of the Niger–Congo family. Other branches lacking any trace of the noun-class system are Dogon and Ijaw, whereas the Talodi branch of Kordofanian does have cognate noun classes, suggesting that Kordofanian is also not a unitary group.
Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan
Over the years, several linguists have suggested a link between Niger–Congo and Nilo-SaharanNilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
, probably starting with Westermann's comparative work on the 'Sudanic' family in which 'Eastern Sudanic
Eastern Sudanic languages
Ehret 2001 [1984]Ehret, published in 2001 but circulating in manuscript form since at least 1984, calls the family "Eastern Sahelian", and idiosyncratically adds the Kuliak languages and Berta, which Bender assigns to higher-level branches of Nilo-Saharan, and reassigns Nyima to the southern branch...
' (now classified as Nilo-Saharan) and 'Western Sudanic' (now classified as Niger–Congo) were united. Gregersen (1972) proposed that Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan be united into a larger phylum which he termed Kongo–Saharan. His evidence was mainly based on the uncertainty in the classification of Songhay
Songhay languages
The Songhay, Songhai, or Songai languages are a group of closely related languages/dialects centered on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the west African states of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. They have been widely used as a lingua franca in that region ever since the...
, morphological resemblances, and lexical similarities. A more recent proponent was Roger Blench
Roger Blench
Roger Blench is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and remains based in Cambridge, England...
(1995), who puts forward phonological, morphological and lexical evidence for uniting Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan in a Niger–Saharan phylum, with special affinity between Niger–Congo and Central Sudanic
Central Sudanic languages
Starostin notes that the poorly attested language Mimi of Decorse is suggestive of Central Sudanic, though he provisionally treats it as an isolate.-References:...
. However, fifteen years later his views had changed, with Blench (2011) proposing instead that the noun-classifier system of Central Sudanic, commonly reflected in a tripartite general–singulative–plurative number system, triggered the development or elaboration of the noun-class system of the Atlantic–Congo languages, with tripartite number marking surviving in the Plateau
Plateau languages
-Characteristics:Only some of the languages have nominal classes, as the Bantu languages have, where in others these have eroded. The large numbers of consonants in many languages is due to the erosion of noun-class prefixes....
and Gur languages
Gur languages
The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to this group. They are spoken in Burkina Faso, southern Mali, northeastern Côte d'Ivoire, northern Ghana, northern Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger.Like most...
of Niger–Congo, and the lexical similarities being due to loans.
Phonology
Niger–Congo languages have a clear preference for open syllables of the type CV (Consonant Vowel). The typical word structure of Proto-Niger–Congo is thought to have been CVCV, a structure still attested in, for example, Bantu, Mande and Ijoid – in many other branches this structure has been reduced through phonologicalPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
change. Verbs are composed of a root followed by one or more extensional suffixes. Nouns consist of a root originally preceded by a noun class prefix of (C)V- shape which is often eroded by phonological change.
Consonant and vowel systems
Reconstructions of the consonant system of several branches of Niger–Congo (Stewart for proto-Volta–Congo, Mukarovsky for his proto-West-Nigritic, roughly corresponding to Atlantic–Congo) have posited independently a regular phonological contrast between two classes of consonants. Pending more clarity as to the precise nature of this contrast it is commonly characterized as a contrast between 'fortis' and 'lenis' consonants. Five places of articulation are postulated for the consonant inventory of proto-Niger–Congo: labialLabial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
, alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
, velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
, and labial-velar
Labial-velar consonant
Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as and the approximant ....
.
Many Niger–Congo languages show vowel harmony
Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
based on the feature [ATR] (advanced tongue root
Advanced tongue root
In phonetics, advanced tongue root and retracted tongue root, abbreviated ATR or RTR, are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in West Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mongolian...
). In this type of vowel harmony, the position of the root of the tongue is the phonetic basis for the distinction between two harmonizing sets of vowels. In its fullest form, this type involves two classes, each of five vowels: [+ATR] /i, e, ə, o, u/ and [-ATR] /ɪ, ɛ, a, ɔ, ʊ/. Vowel inventories of this type are still found in some branches of Niger–Congo, for example in the Ghana Togo Mountain languages
Ghana Togo Mountain languages
The Ghana–Togo Mountain languages, formerly called Togorestsprachen and Central Togo languages, form a grouping of about fourteen languages spoken in the mountains of the Ghana–Togo borderland...
. To date, many languages show reductions from this fuller system. The fact that ten vowels have been reconstructed for proto-Atlantic, proto-Ijoid and possibly proto-Volta–Congo leads Williamson (1989:23) to the hypothesis that the original vowel inventory of Niger–Congo was a full ten-vowel system. On the other hand, Stewart in recent comparative work reconstructs a seven vowel system for his proto-Potou-Akanic-Bantu.
Nasality
Several scholars have documented a contrast between oral and nasal vowelNasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
s in Niger–Congo. In his reconstruction of proto-Volta–Congo, Steward (1976) postulates that nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
s have originated under the influence of nasal vowels; this hypothesis is supported by the fact that there are several Niger–Congo languages that have been analysed as lacking nasal consonants altogether. Languages like this have nasal vowels accompanied with complementary distribution
Complementary distribution
Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment...
between oral and nasal consonants before oral and nasal vowels. Subsequent loss of the nasal/oral contrast in vowels may result in nasal consonants becoming part of the phoneme inventory. In all cases reported to date, the bilabial /m/ is the first nasal consonant to be phonologized. Niger–Congo thus invalidates two common assumptions about nasals: that all languages have at least one primary nasal consonant, and that if a language has only one primary nasal consonant it is /n/.
Niger–Congo languages commonly show fewer nasalized than oral vowels. Kasem
Kasem language
Kasem is a Gur language spoken in the Upper Eastern Region of Ghana and in Burkina Faso.-References:**-External links:**...
, a language with a ten-vowel system employing ATR vowel harmony, has seven nasalized vowels. Similarly, Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
has seven oral vowels and only five nasal ones. However, the recently discovered language of Zialo
Zialo language
Zialo is a language spoken by the Zialo people in Guinea.The language of Zialo which belongs to the Southwestern group of the Mande branch of the Niger–Congo language family is spoken by approximately 25,000 people residing in the province of Macenta in the southeast of Guinea...
has nasal equivalent for each of its seven vowels.
Tone
The large majority of present-day Niger–Congo languages are tonalTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
. A typical Niger–Congo tone system involves two or three contrastive level tones. Four level systems are less widespread, and five level systems are rare. Only a few Niger–Congo languages are non-tonal; Swahili is perhaps the best known, but within the Atlantic
Atlantic languages
The Atlantic or West Atlantic languages of West Africa are an obsolete proposed major group of the Niger–Congo languages. They are those languages west of Kru which have the noun-class systems characteristic of the Niger–Congo family; in this they are distinguished from their Mande neighbors, which...
branch some others are found. Proto-Niger–Congo is thought to have been a tone language with two contrastive levels. Synchronic and comparative-historical studies of tone systems show that such a basic system can easily develop more tonal contrasts under the influence of depressor consonants or through the introduction of a downstep. Languages which have more tonal levels tend to use tone more for lexical and less for grammatical contrasts.
| H, L | Dyula–Bambara Bambara language Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people... , Maninka Maninka language Maninka, or more precisely Eastern Maninka, is the name of several closely related languages and dialects of the southeastern Manding subgroup of the Mande branch of the Niger–Congo languages... , Temne Temne language Temne is a language of the Atlantic subfamily of Niger–Congo languages spoken in Sierra Leone by about 2 million first speakers. One of the country's most widely spoken languages, it is spoken by 30% of the country’s population... , Dogon Dogon languages The Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon of Mali. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages, most like Dogul having two tones, some like Donno So having three.... , Dagbani Dagbani language Dagbani is a Gur language spoken in Ghana. Its native speakers are primarily of the Dagomba people, but Dagbani is also widely known as a first language in northern Ghana.-Vowels:Dagbani has eleven phonemic vowels: six short and five long vowels:... , Gbaya Gbaya language The Gbaya languages, or Gbaya–Manza–Ngbaka, are a group of perhaps a dozen Ubangian languages spoken mainly in the Central African Republic, and to a lesser extent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon... , Efik Efik language Efik , also known as Riverain Ibibio, is the native language of the Efik people of Nigeria, where it is a national language. It is the official language of the Cross River State in Nigeria.The name Efik is also used for Ibibio-Efik.... , Lingala Lingala language Lingala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo , as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers... |
| H, M, L | Yakuba, Nafaanra Nafaanra language Nafaanra is a Senufo language spoken in northwest Ghana, along the border with Côte d'Ivoire, east of Bondouko. It is spoken by approximately 61,000 people. Its speakers call themselves Nafana; others call them Banda or Mfantera. Like other Senufo languages, Nafaanra is a tonal language... , Kasem Kasem language Kasem is a Gur language spoken in the Upper Eastern Region of Ghana and in Burkina Faso.-References:**-External links:**... , Banda Banda languages Banda is a family of Ubangian languages spoken by the Banda people of Central Africa.-Languages:Olson classfies the Banda family as follows :*Central**Central Banda... , Yoruba Yoruba language Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas... , Jukun Jukun language Jukun or Djugun is an Australian Aboriginal language of Western Australia. There are no longer any fluent speakers of Jukun, but some people may remember it to some degree.... , Dangme, Yukuben, Akan Akan languages The Central Tano or Akan languages are languages of the Kwa language family spoken in Ghana and Ivory Coast by the Akan people*Akan language *Bia**North Bia***Anyin***Baoulé***Chakosi ***Sefwi **South Bia***Nzema... , Anyi, Ewe Ewe language Ewe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja... , Igbo Igbo language Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin... |
| T, H, M, L | Gban, Wobe Wobé language Wobé is a Kru language spoken in Ivory Coast. It is one of several languages in a dialect continuum called Wèè .-Tone:Wobé is known for claims that it has the largest number of tones of any language in the world... , Munzombo, Igede Igede language Igede is an Idomoid language spoken in Benue State and Cross River State, Nigeria, by 250,000 people.... , Mambila Mambila language Mambila is a Bantoid dialect chain stretching across Nigeria and Cameroon. Notable dialects are Barup, Bang, Dorofi, Gembu, Hainari, Kabri, Mayo Ndaga, Mbamnga, Tamien, Warwar ; Ju Ba, Sunu Torbi , Ju Naare , Langa... , Fon Fon language Fon is part of the Gbe language cluster and belongs to the Volta–Niger branch of the Niger–Congo languages. Fon is spoken mainly in Benin by approximately 1.7 million speakers, by the Fon people... |
| T, H, M, L, B | Ashuku (Benue–Congo), Dan-Santa (Mande) |
| PA/S | Mandinka (Senegambia) Mandinka language The Mandinka language is a Mandé language spoken by millions of Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau and Chad; it is the main language of The Gambia. It belongs to the Manding branch of Mandé, and is thus fairly... , Fula Fula language The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan... , Wolof Wolof language Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family... , Kimwani Kimwani The Mwani language, or Kimwani , is spoken on the coast of the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique, including the Quirimbas Islands. Although it shares high lexical similarity with Swahili, it is not intelligible with it. It is spoken by around 120,000 people... |
| none | Swahili Swahili language Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia... |
| Abbreviations used: T top, H high, M mid, L low, B bottom, PA/S pitch-accent or stress Adapted from Williamson 1989:27 |
|
Noun classification
Niger–Congo languages are known for their system of noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
ification, traces of which can be found in every branch of the family but Mande, Ijoid, Dogon, and the Katla and Rashad branches of Kordofanian. These noun-classification systems are somewhat analogous to grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
in other languages, but there are often a fairly large number of classes (often 10 or more), and the classes may be male human/female human/animate/inanimate, or even completely gender-unrelated categories such as places, plants, abstracts, and groups of objects. For example, in Bantu, the Swahili language is called Kiswahili, while the Swahili people are Waswahili. Likewise, in Ubangian, the Zande language is called Pazande, while the Zande people are called Azande.
In the Bantu languages, where noun classification is particularly elaborate, it typically appears as prefixes, with verbs and adjectives marked according to the class of the noun they refer to. For example, in Swahili, watu wazuri wataenda is 'good (zuri) people (tu) will go (ta-enda).
Verbal extensions
The same Atlantic–Congo languages which have noun classes also have a set of verb applicatives and other verbal extensions, such as the reciprocalReciprocal (grammar)
A reciprocal is a linguistic structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the participants occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to each other...
suffix -na (Swahili penda 'to love', pendana 'to love each other'; also applicative pendea 'to love for' and causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
pendeza 'to please').
Word order
A subject–verb–object word order is quite widespread among today's Niger–Congo languages, but SOV is found in branches as divergent as MandeMande languages
The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...
, Ijoid
Ijoid languages
The Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ịjọ and Defaka peoples of the Niger Delta, who number about ten million. The most populous language by far is Izon, with about a million speakers, followed by Okrike-Kalabari with over a half million. The family is generally divided in two branches, Ịjọ and...
and Dogon
Dogon languages
The Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon of Mali. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages, most like Dogul having two tones, some like Donno So having three....
. As a result, there has been quite some debate as to the basic word order of Niger–Congo.
Whereas Claudi (1993) argues for SVO on the basis of existing SVO>SOV grammaticalization paths (SOV>SVO is never found), Gensler (1997) points out that the notion of 'basic word order' is problematic as it excludes structures with, for example, auxiliaries
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
.
However, the structure SC-OC-VbStem (Subject concord, Object concord, Verb stem) found in the "verbal complex" of the SVO Bantu languages suggests an earlier SOV pattern (where the subject and object were at least represented by pronouns).
Noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s in most Niger–Congo languages are characteristically noun-initial, with adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, numerals
Number names
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...
, demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s and genitives all coming after the noun. The major exceptions are found in the western areas where verb-final word order predominates and genitives precede nouns, though other modifiers still come afterwards. Degree words almost always follow adjectives, and except in verb-final languages adposition
Adposition
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
s are prepositional.
The verb-final languages of the Mende region have two quite unusual word order characteristics. Although verbs follow their direct objects, oblique adpositional phrases (like "in the house", "with timber") typically come after the verb, creating a SOVX word order. Also noteworthy in these languages is the prevalence of internally-headed and correlative relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
s, in both of which the head occurs inside the relative clause rather than the main clause.
Major clades
The traditional branches and major languages of the Niger–Congo family are,- Kordofanian languagesKordofanian languagesThe Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan Province, Sudan. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg added them to the Niger–Congo family, creating his Niger–Kordofanian proposal...
: spoken in southern central Sudan, around the Nuba MountainsNuba MountainsNuba Mountains is an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. The area is home to a group of indigenous ethnic groups known collectively as the Nuba peoples. In the 18th century, Nuba Mountains became home to the kingdom of Taqali that controlled the hills of the mountains until their defeat by...
(not a single family) - ? MandeMande languagesThe Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...
: spoken in West Africa; includes BambaraBambara languageBambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people...
, the main language spoken in MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, as well as SoninkeSoninke languageThe Soninke language is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 1,096,795 speakers, primarily located in Mali, and also in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana...
, a language spoken mainly in MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
but also in SenegalSenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
and MauritaniaMauritaniaMauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
. The evidence linking Mande to Niger–Congo is thin. Blench regards it as an early branch that diverged before the morphology characteristic of most of Niger–Congo developed, which Dimmendaal (2008) argues that for now it is best considered an independent family. - IjoidIjoid languagesThe Ijoid languages are spoken by the Ịjọ and Defaka peoples of the Niger Delta, who number about ten million. The most populous language by far is Izon, with about a million speakers, followed by Okrike-Kalabari with over a half million. The family is generally divided in two branches, Ịjọ and...
in NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, including IjoIjo languagesIjaw, also spelled Ịjọ, is the main subgroup of the Ijoid group of Niger–Congo languages. Ijaw languages are spoken in southern Nigeria by the Ijaw people....
and DefakaDefaka languageThe Defaka language is an Ijoid branch of the Niger–Congo languages, spoken in Nigeria. It is an endangered language.Ethnically, the Defaka are distinct from the Nkoroo, but they have assimilated to Nkoroo culture to such a degree that their language seems to be the only sign of a distinct Defaka...
. - ? DogonDogon languagesThe Dogon languages are spoken by the Dogon of Mali. There are about 600,000 speakers of a dozen languages. They are tonal languages, most like Dogul having two tones, some like Donno So having three....
, spoken in MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
. The evidence linking Dogon to Niger–Congo is weak. - AtlanticAtlantic languagesThe Atlantic or West Atlantic languages of West Africa are an obsolete proposed major group of the Niger–Congo languages. They are those languages west of Kru which have the noun-class systems characteristic of the Niger–Congo family; in this they are distinguished from their Mande neighbors, which...
: includes WolofWolof languageWolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
, spoken in SenegalSenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, and FulaFula languageThe Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
, a language spoken across the SahelSahelThe Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....
. The validity of Atlantic as a genetic grouping is controversial. - KruKru languages-References:* Westerman, Diedrich Hermann Languages of West Africa . London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press.-External links:* at Ethnologue*...
: spoken in West AfricaWest AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, include BétéBété languageBété is a language cluster of Kru languages in Ivory Coast....
, NyabwaNyabwa languageThe Nyabwa language is a Kru language spoken in Ivory Coast. It is part of the Wee dialect continuum....
, and DidaDida languageDida is a dialect cluster of the Kru family spoken in Ivory Coast.Ethnologue divides Dida into two groups, Yocoboué Dida and Lakota Dida , which are only marginally mutually intelligible and best considered separate languages...
. - SenufoSenufo languagesThe Senufo or Senufic languages comprise ca. 15 languages spoken by the Senufo in the north of Côte d'Ivoire, the south of Mali and the southwest of Burkina Faso. An isolated language, Nafaanra, is also spoken in the west of Ghana. The Senufo languages are generally considered a branch of the Gur...
: spoken in Côte d'IvoireCôte d'IvoireThe Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
and MaliMaliMali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, with a geographical outlier in GhanaGhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, and including Senari and SupyireSupyire languageSupyire, or Suppire, is the name of a language centralized in the Sikasso Region region of southeastern Mali, in western Africa. Supyire is spoken by an estimated 364,000 Supyire people, according to Ethnologue. The language belongs to the larger language group of Senufo, a member of the Gur...
. - Gur languagesGur languagesThe Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to this group. They are spoken in Burkina Faso, southern Mali, northeastern Côte d'Ivoire, northern Ghana, northern Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger.Like most...
, such as MoreMore languageThe Mossi language, Mòoré is one of two official regional languages of Burkina Faso, closely related and mutually intelligible with the Dagbani language spoken in northern Ghana...
in Burkina FasoBurkina FasoBurkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated... - Adamawa languagesAdamawa languagesThe Adamawa languages are a putative family of 80–90 languages scattered across the Adamawa Plateau in central Africa, in Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Chad, spoken altogether by only one and a half million people . Joseph Greenberg classified them as one branch of the...
, such as Chamba in CameroonCameroonCameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the... - ? Ubangi languages: such as Sango in the Central African RepublicCentral African RepublicThe Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the north east, South Sudan in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west. The CAR covers a land area of about ,...
. Olson (2006:165-167) demonstrated that the evidence linking Ubangian to Niger–Congo is weak, and Dimmendal (2008) went so far as to exclude Ubangian from Niger–Congo. - KwaKwa languagesThe Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo...
: includes AkanAkan languageAkan, also known as Twi and Fante, is an Akan language that is the principal native language of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of that country, by about 52% of the population, and to a lesser extent across the border in eastern Côte d'Ivoire...
, spoken in GhanaGhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. - Volta–NigerVolta–Niger languagesThe Volta–Niger family of languages, also known as West Benue–Congo or East Kwa, is one of the branches of the Niger–Congo language family, with perhaps 50 million speakers...
(= West Benue–Congo), including among others:- The Gbe languagesGbe languagesThe Gbe languages form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe , followed by Fon...
, spoken in GhanaGhanaGhana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, TogoTogoTogo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
, BeninBeninBenin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, and NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, of which EweEwe languageEwe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja...
is best known. - The YorubaYoruba languageYorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...
and IgboIgbo languageIgbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin...
languages, spoken in NigeriaNigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
.
- The Gbe languages
- (East) Benue–Congo, including:
- The very large BantuBantu languagesThe Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
family, with SwahiliSwahili languageSwahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
, FangFang languageFang is the dominant Bantu language of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. It is related to the Bulu and Ewondo languages of southern Cameroon. Fang is spoken in northern Gabon, southern Cameroon, and throughout Equatorial Guinea. Shakira used this language in her song, "Waka Waka .".There are many...
, KongoKongo languageThe Kongo language, or Kikongo, is the Bantu language spoken by the Bakongo and Bandundu people living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language and formed the base for Kituba, a Bantu creole and lingua franca...
, ZuluZulu languageZulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
, and many other languages of central and southern Africa.
- The very large Bantu
Some linguists consider the twenty or so Kordofanian languages
Kordofanian languages
The Kordofanian languages are a geographic grouping of three to five language families spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan Province, Sudan. In 1963 Joseph Greenberg added them to the Niger–Congo family, creating his Niger–Kordofanian proposal...
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, and yet others do not accept Kordofanian as a single group. Senufo has been placed traditionally within Gur, but is now usually considered an early off-shoot from Atlantic–Congo.
The Laal
Laal language
Laal is an unclassified language spoken by 749 people in three villages in the Moyen-Chari prefecture of Chad on opposite banks of the Chari River,...
, Mpre
Mpre language
Mpre Mpra is a language once spoken in the village of Butie in Ghana, near the confluence of the Black and White Voltas, that has been difficult to classify...
, and Jalaa
Jalaa language
Jalaa Centúúm or Cen Tuum is an endangered language of northeastern Nigeria , of uncertain origins...
languages are often linked with Niger–Congo, but have yet to be conclusively classified.
 |  |
| Localization of the Niger–Congo languages | |
Further reading
- Vic Webb (2001) African Voices: An Introduction to the Languages and Linguistics of Africa
- Bendor-Samuel, JohnJohn Bendor-SamuelJohn Theodore Bendor-Samuel was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African linguistics...
& Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) (1989) The Niger–Congo Languages – A classification and description of Africa's largest language family. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of AmericaUniversity Press of AmericaUniversity Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
. - Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger–Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273.
- Blench, Roger (1995) 'Is Niger–Congo simply a branch of Nilo-Saharan?' In Proceedings: Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Nice, 1992, ed. R. Nicolai and F. Rottland, 83-130. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
- —— (2011) "Can Sino-Tibetan and Austroasiatic help us understand the evolution of Niger-Congo noun classes?",http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/blench-call-leiden-2011.pdf CALL 41, Leiden
- Capo, Hounkpati B.C. (1981) 'Nasality in Gbe: A Synchronic Interpretation' Studies in African Linguistics, 12, 1, 1-43.
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