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.
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 the first branchings instead of being co-ordinate to the phylum as a whole, prompting re-introduction of the term 'Niger-Congo', which is in current use among linguists. (see also Kordofanian languages)
The major languages or subgroups belonging to Niger-Congo are
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.
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.
The Laal, Mpre, and Jalaa languages are often linked with Niger-Congo, but have yet to be conclusively classified.
Sub-classification
An alternate classification, after Blench, follows. (Families are in bold; single languages in italics.)
Niger-Congo
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.
