Niger–Congo languages


Niger–Congo is a proposed family of indigenous African languages spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages, and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger–Congo would be the world's largest language family in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area. The number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.
The proposed family would be the third-largest in the world by number of native speakers, with around 600 million people as of 2025. Within Niger–Congo, the Bantu languages alone account for 350 million people, or half the total Niger–Congo speaking population. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Edo, Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Lingala, Ewe, Fon, Ga-Dangme, Shona, Sesotho, Xhosa, Zulu, Akan, and Mooré. The most widely spoken by the total number of speakers is Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca in parts of eastern and southeastern Africa.
While the ultimate genetic unity of the core of Niger–Congo is widely accepted, the internal cladistic structure is not well established. Other primary branches may include Mande, Dogon, Ijaw, Katla and Rashad. The connection of the Mande languages especially has never been demonstrated, and without them, the validity of Niger–Congo family as a whole has not been established.
One of the most distinctive characteristics common to Atlantic–Congo languages is the use of a noun-class system, which is essentially a gender system with multiple genders.

Origin

The language family most likely originated in or near the area where these languages were spoken prior to Bantu expansion. Its expansion may have been associated with the expansion of Sahel agriculture in the African Neolithic period, following the desiccation of the Sahara in c. 3500 BC.
Similar classifications to Niger–Congo have been made ever since Diedrich Westermann in 1922. Joseph Greenberg continued that tradition, making it the starting point for modern linguistic classification in Africa, with some of his publications going to press starting in the 1960s. However, there has been active debate for many decades over the appropriate subclassifications of the languages in this language family, which is a key tool used in localising a language's place of origin. No definitive "Proto-Niger–Congo" lexicon or grammar has been developed for the language family as a whole.
An important unresolved issue in determining the time and place where the Niger–Congo languages originated and their range prior to recorded history is this language family's relationship to the Kordofanian languages, now spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, which is not contiguous with the remainder of the Niger–Congo-language-speaking region and is at the northeasternmost extent of the current Niger–Congo linguistic region. The current prevailing linguistic view is that the Kordofanian languages are part of the Niger–Congo language family and may be the oldest languages in the region. The evidence is insufficient to determine if this outlier group of Niger–Congo language speakers represents a prehistoric range of a Niger–Congo linguistic region that has since contracted as other languages have intruded, or if instead, this represents a group of Niger–Congo language speakers who migrated to the area at some point in prehistory where they were an isolated linguistic community from the beginning.
There is more agreement regarding the place of origin of Benue–Congo, the largest subfamily of the group. Within Benue–Congo, the place of origin of the Bantu languages as well as time at which it started to expand is known with great specificity. Blench, relying particularly on prior work by Kay Williamson and P. De Wolf, argued that Benue–Congo probably originated at the confluence of the Benue and Niger Rivers in central Nigeria. These estimates of the place of origin of the Benue–Congo language family do not fix a date for the start of that expansion, other than that it must have been sufficiently prior to the Bantu expansion to allow for the diversification of the languages within this language family that includes Bantu.
The classification of the relatively divergent family of the Ubangian languages, centred in the Central African Republic, as part of the Niger–Congo language family is disputed. Ubangian was grouped with Niger–Congo by Greenberg, and later authorities concurred, but it was questioned by Dimmendaal.
The Bantu expansion, beginning around 1000 BC, swept across much of Central and Southern Africa, leading to the assimilation and extinction of many of the indigenous Pygmy and Bushmen populations there.

Major branches

The following is an overview of the language groups usually included in Niger–Congo. The genetic relationship of some branches is not universally accepted, and the cladistic connection between those who are accepted as related may also be unclear.
The core phylum of the Niger–Congo group are the Atlantic–Congo languages. The non-Atlantic–Congo languages within Niger–Congo are grouped as Dogon, Mande, Ijo, Katla, and Rashad.

Atlantic–Congo

Atlantic–Congo combines the Atlantic languages, which do not form one branch, and Volta–Congo. It comprises more than 80% of the Niger–Congo speaking population, or close to 600 million people.
The proposed Savannas group combines Adamawa, Ubangian and Gur. Outside of the Savannas group, Volta–Congo comprises Kru, Kwa, Volta–Niger, and Benue–Congo. Volta–Niger includes the two largest languages of Nigeria, Yoruba, and Igbo. Benue–Congo includes the Southern Bantoid group, which is dominated by the Bantu languages, which account for 350 million people, or half the total Niger–Congo speaking population.
The strict genetic unity of any of these subgroups may themselves be under dispute. For example, Roger Blench argued that Adamawa, Ubangian, Kwa, Bantoid, and Bantu are not coherent groups.
Although the Kordofanian branch is generally included in the Niger–Congo languages, some researchers do not agree with its inclusion. Glottolog 3.4 does not accept that the Kordofanian branches or the difficult-to-classify Laal language have been demonstrated to be Atlantic–Congo languages. It otherwise accepts the family but not its inclusion within a broader Niger–Congo. Glottolog also considers Ijoid, Mande, and Dogon to be independent language phyla that have not been demonstrated to be related to each other.
The Atlantic–Congo group is characterised by the noun class systems of its languages. Atlantic–Congo largely corresponds to Mukarovsky's "Western Nigritic" phylum.
;Atlantic
The polyphyletic Atlantic group accounts for about 35 million speakers as of 2016, mostly accounted for by Fula and Wolof speakers. Atlantic is not considered to constitute a valid group.
  • Senegambian languages: includes Wolof, spoken in Senegal, and Fula, spoken across the Sahel.
  • Bak languages, sometimes grouped with Senegambian
  • Mel languages
  • Limba language
  • Gola language
;Volta–Congo
  • North-Volta
  • *Kru: languages of the Kru people in West Africa; includes Bété, Nyabwa, and Dida.
  • *Adamawa-Ubangi:
  • **Adamawa: close to 100 languages and dialects scattered across the Adamawa Plateau, spoken by an estimated total of 1.6 million as of 1996; the largest is Mumuye, accounting for about a quarter of Adamawa speakers.
  • **Ubangian: a group of minor languages spoken in the Central African Republic. May be an independent family or grouped with Adamawa as "Adamawa-Ubangi".
  • *Gur: about 70 languages spoken in the Sahel and Savanna regions of West Africa, accounting for some 20 million speakers, with over 12 million speakers. Gur and Adamawa-Ubangi have also been grouped as Savannas languages.
  • *Senufo: languages of the Senufo people, spoken in Ivory Coast and Mali, with a geographical outlier in Ghana; includes Senari and Supyire. Senufo has been placed traditionally within Gur but is now usually considered an early offshoot from Atlantic–Congo.
  • South-Volta
  • *Kwa: a divergent linkage of languages of uncertain genetic unity, spoken along the Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana and in central Togo, with a total of some 40 million speakers. The largest language in this group is Akan, spoken in Ghana, with about 22 million speakers as of 2014, including Twi.
  • *Volta–Niger : a large linkage of West African languages, accounting for roughly 110–120 million speakers.
  • **Gbe: spoken in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, of which Ewe is the largest and best known.
  • **"": a large group of languages centred on Nigeria, accounting for about 100 million speakers
  • ***Yoruboid: 50 million speakers, including Yoruba
  • ***Edoid: including Edo
  • ***Akoko
  • ***Igboid: including Igbo
  • **"":
  • ***Nupoid: c. 3 million
  • ***Oko: a minor dialect continuum spoken in Kogi State
  • ***Idomoid: group of languages of central Nigeria, including Idoma with 1 to 2 million speakers
  • **Ayere-Ahan
  • *Benue–Congo linkage
  • **Bantoid-Cross:
  • ***Cross River
  • ***Northern Bantoid:
  • ****Dakoid?
  • ****Fam?
  • ****Tikar?
  • ****Mambiloid
  • ***Bendi
  • ***Southern Bantoid: includes the far-flung Bantu languages spread across Sub-Saharan Africa in the Bantu expansion from to AD 500.
  • ****Tivoid-Beboid: a large range of languages of southwestern Cameroon and southeastern Nigeria: Tivoid, Esimbi, East Beboid, West Beboid?, Momo?, Furu?, Buru?, Menchum?
  • ****Ekoid-Mbe
  • ****Mamfe
  • ****Grassfields
  • ****Jarawan-Mbam
  • ****Bantu: divided into Guthrie zones A–S, for a total of between 250 and 550 named languages.
  • **Central Nigerian : Jukunoid, Kainji, Plateau
  • **other languages unclassified within Benue–Congo: Ukaan, Fali of Baissa, Tita.