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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. 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.
Classification historyEarly classificationsNiger-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 classifiy nouns, or the lack thereof. A major advance came with the work of Koelle, who in his 1854 Polyglotta Africana 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 Sub-Saharan languages. Subsequent work of Bleek, and some decades later the comparative work of Meinhof, solidly established Bantu as a linguistic unit.
Westermann, Greenberg and beyondImage:Westermann 1911 Sudansprachen cover.jpg Westermann's 1911 Die Sudansprachen. Eine sprachvergleichende Studie. 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 'Character 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, the family was renamed Niger-Kordofanian. Greenberg's work, though initially greeted with scepticism, became the prevailing view for most 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 co-ordinate 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 loss of the Niger-Congo noun-class system, rather than any validity of the rest of the family as a group. Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan
Common featuresPhonologyNiger-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 phonological 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 systemsReconstructions 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: labial, 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 to classes of both 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.[1] 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.[2] NasalitySeveral scholars have documented a contrast between oral and nasal vowels in Niger-Congo.[3] In his reconstruction of proto-Volta-Congo, Steward (1976) postulates that nasal consonants 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[4]: 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. ToneThe large majority of present-day Niger-Congo languages is tonal. 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 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.
MorphosyntaxNoun classification
Niger-Congo languages are known for their system of noun classification, traces of which can be found in every branch of the family. These noun-classification systems are somewhat anologous 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. In the Bantu languages, where noun classification is particularly common and elaborate, it typically appears as prefixes, with verbs and adjectives marked according to the class of the noun they refer to. 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 Mande, Ijoid and Dogon. As a result, there has been quite some debate as to the basic word order of Niger-Congo. Major subgroupsThe major languages or subgroups belonging to Niger-Congo are,
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. Senufo has been placed traditionally within Gur, but is now usually considered an early off-shoot from Volta-Congo. 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-classificationAn alternate classification, based on Blench, follows. (Families are in bold; single languages in italics.) Niger-Congo
Notes and referencesNotes
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