język: Languages of Africa

Evidence: 68 • authority: 72

Niger–Congo is a proposed family of African languages spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), 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 Nige…

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SIL Ethnologue), one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The languages of Africa belong to many distinct language families, among which the largest are: Niger–Congo, which include the large Atlantic-Congo and Bantu branches in West, Central, Southeast and Southern Africa. Afroasiatic languages are spread throughout Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel. Saharan, Nilotic and Central Sudanic…

Evidence: 71 • authority: 72

The Volta–Niger family of languages, also known as West Benue–Congo, Kwa or East Kwa, is one of the branches of the Niger–Congo language family, with perhaps 70 million speakers. Among these are the most spoken languages of southern Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and southeast Ghana: Yoruba, Igbo, Bini, and Gbe. These languages have variously been placed within the Kwa or Benue–Congo families or, starting in the 1970s, combined with them altogether. Williamson & Blench (2000) separate the languages here called Volta-Niger from the others. Güldemann (2018) fails to see clear criteria for dividing the languages into two or three families and maintains the broad grouping and name of Benue-Kwa for all o…

Evidence: 68 • authority: 72

The Afroasiatic languages (also known as the Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic languages) are a language family (or phylum) of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahara and Sahel. Over 500 million people are native speakers of an Afroasiatic language, constituting the fourth-largest language family after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Niger–Congo. Most linguists divide the family into six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Omotic, and Semitic. The vast majority of Afroasiatic languages are considered indigenous to the African continent, including all those not belonging to the Semitic…

Evidence: 57 • authority: 72

The Atlantic–Congo languages make up the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages (previously classified as Kordofanian), and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Hans Gunther Mukanovsky's "Western Nigritic" corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo. In the infobox, the languages that appear to be the most divergent are placed at the top. The Atlantic branch is defined in the narrow sense (as Senegambian), while the former Atlantic branches Mel and the isolates…

Evidence: 57 • authority: 72

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the north of the Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and Greater Iran, with additional native branches found in regions such as Armenia, parts of the southern Indian subcontinent (Sri Lanka and the Maldives), and even stretching as far as to mainland Southeast Asia (Rohingya language in Myanmar). Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia and Northwestern China. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches, of which eight are still spoken: four by hundreds of millions of native speakers each (Indo-Iranian, Italic, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic), and four by fewer than fifteen million native speake…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 88

Niger-Congo archaeolinguistics, including Bantu. Abstract Niger-Congo is the world’s largest language phylum. It incorporates more than 1,500 languages spoken across the African continent, except northern Africa. Although the earliest stages of Niger-Congo’s development are not well understood, its purported origins lay between ~20 and 12 kya within West Africa. This time frame overlaps with the earliest phases of the region’s repopulation during the African Humid Period. Despite the significance of this period, few attempts have been made to identify where and when Niger-Congo originated and how it became Africa’s largest phylum. We argue that despite serious methodological and empirical i…

Evidence: 46 • authority: 72

Volta–Congo is a major branch of the Atlantic–Congo family. It includes all Atlantic–Congo except the families of the erstwhile Atlantic and Kordofanian branches and possibly Senufo. In the infobox at the right, the languages which appear to be the most divergent (including the dubious Senufo) are placed at the top, whereas those closer to the core (the similar "Benue–Kwa" branches of Kwa, Volta–Niger and Benue–Congo) are near the bottom. If the Kwa or Savannas branches prove to be invalid, the tree will be even more crowded.

Evidence: 40 • authority: 88

Vowel Harmony in Bantu Niger-Congo Languages. Abstract Vowel harmony is a common, although not universal, feature of Bantu languages. It affects languages throughout the Bantu region, from the northwestern Zone A languages to the southeastern Zone S languages and virtually everywhere in between. However, how vowel harmony functions varies rather widely from zone to zone and language to language. The most common types of Bantu vowel harmony are height harmony and advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony. Retracted tongue root (RTR) harmony is also recognized as fairly common in Bantu C languages among others. While other types of vowel harmonies are found in Bantu languages, this chapter presents…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 88

Acquisition of Eegimaa (Atlantic family, Niger-Congo) in a polyadic environment: A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022). Research on lesser studied languages is vital for the advancement of theories of language acquisition. We discuss two areas where data from Eegimaa have the potential to produce innovative research: (1) language typology, with an overview of the complex demonstratives found in this language, and (2) learning environment and input speech. Here, we show that Eegimaa children learn to speak in a polyadic environment, where they receive input from multiple caregivers, siblings and other members of their community.

Evidence: 35 • authority: 72

Proto-Niger–Congo is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language of the proposed Niger–Congo language family.

Evidence: 35 • authority: 88

Mande and Bantu in the Niger-Congo context. That Mande family belongs to the Niger-Congo macro-family was first proposed by Joseph Greenberg in the middle of the 20th century. Over the last two decades this affiliation has regularly been questioned, the main argument for skepticism being the well-known fact there is no trace of any noun class in Mande.Our study proves that these doubts are groundless as far as the lexicon is concerned. Our conclusion is based on the following arguments which appear to be sufficient for the establishment of a relationship between Mande and Bantu and, consequently, for the inclusion of Mande in Niger-Congo: In the basic vocabulary, the average cognacy rate of…