Benue-Congo languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Benue-Congo | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Subsaharan Africa, from Nigeria east and south |
| Genetic classification: |
Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Benue-Congo |
| Subdivisions: |
Plateau ?
Ukaan ?
|
 Some important branches of the Volta-Niger and Benue-Congo families are concentrated in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin. |
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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 880 are known (per Ethnologue, not counting mere dialects), and in terms of speakers, numbering perhaps 500 million. Within Niger-Congo, Benue-Congo is a branch of Atlantic-Congo, and perhaps also Volta-Congo if that turns out to be a valid group. When it was first proposed by Joseph Greenberg (1963) it included the Volta-Niger languages; the boundary between those languages and Kwa has also been debated.
The branches of the Benue-Congo family, along with the number of constituent languages, are thought to be as follows:
The original Plateau grouping was a geographic rather than genealogical group, though the languages listed here as Plateau may form a valid family.
Ukaan is also related to Benue-Congo; Roger Blench suspects it may be either the most divergent language (East) Benue-Congo language, or the closest relative to Benue-Congo.
Fali of Baissa may also be Benue-Congo, but is otherwise unclassified.
[edit] References
- Wolf, Paul Polydoor de (1971) The Noun Class System of Proto-Benue-Congo (Thesis, Leiden University). The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
- Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Benue-Congo Overview', pp. 248—274 in Bendor-Samuel, John & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) The Niger-Congo Languages — A classification and description of Africa's largest language family. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
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