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.Irene Thompson, "Niger-Congo Language Family", "aboutworldlanguages", March 2015 The number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.Simons, Gary F. and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2018. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty-first edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
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 (2015), or half the total Niger–Congo speaking population. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers include Yoruba, Fula, Igbo, Lingala, Mooré, Ewe, Fon, Zulu, Shona, Xhosa, Twi and Fante, Sesotho, Swahili, Edo, Gã and Dangme; 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 (called Atlantic–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 is often contested; however, Pozdniakov & Vydrin (2026) believe that in terms of lexicon, Mande is related to Bantu, and thus the other Niger–Congo languages.
One of the most distinctive characteristics common to Atlantic–Congo languages is the use of a noun-class system."Niger-Congo Languages", "The Language Gulper", March 2015
Origin
The language family most likely originated in or near the area where these languages were spoken prior to Bantu expansion (i.e. West Africa or Central Africa). 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.Igor Kopytoff, The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies (1989), 9–10 (cited after Igbo Language Roots and (Pre)-History , A Mighty Tree, 2011).
Similar classifications to Niger–Congo have been made ever since Diedrich Westermann in 1922.Westermann, D. 1922a. Die Sprache der Guang. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. 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.Greenberg, J. H. 1964. Historical inferences from linguistic research in sub-Saharan Africa. Boston University Papers in African History, 1:1–15. 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.Herman Bell. 1995. The Nuba Mountains: Who Spoke What in 1976? (the published results from a major project of the Institute of African and Asian Studies: the Language Survey of the Nuba Mountains.) The evidence is insufficient to determine whether 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 (2004), 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.Blench, Roger, "The Benue-Congo languages: a proposed internal classification". "No comprehensive reconstruction has yet been done for the phylum as a whole, and it is sometimes suggested (e.g. by Dixon 1997) that Niger-Congo is merely a typological and not a genetic unity. This view is not held by any specialists in the phylum, and reasons for thinking Niger-Congo is a true genetic unity will be given in this chapter. It is, however, true that the subclassification of the phylum has been continuously modified in recent years and cannot be presented as an agreed scheme. The factors which have delayed reconstruction are the large number of languages, the inaccessibility of much of the data, and the paucity of able researchers committed to this field. Emphasis will be placed on three characteristics of Niger-Congo; noun-class systems, verbal extensions, and basic lexicon." See also: Bendor-Samuel, J. ed. 1989. The Niger–Congo Languages. Lanham: University Press of America.Williamson, K. 1971. "The Benue–Congo languages and Ijo" Current Trends in Linguistics, 7. ed. T. Sebeok 245–306. The Hague: Mouton.Williamson, K. 1988. "Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of the Niger Delta". The early history of the Niger Delta, edited by E. J. Alagoa, F. N. Anozie and N. Nzewunwa. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.Williamson, K. 1989. "Benue–Congo Overview" in The Niger–Congo Languages. J. Bendor-Samuel ed. Lanham: University Press of America.De Wolf, P. 1971. The noun class system of Proto-Benue–Congo. The Hague: Mouton.Blench, R. M. 1989. "A proposed new classification of Benue–Congo languages". Afrikanische Arbeitspapiere, Köln, 17:115–147. 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 (1963), and later authorities concurred, but it was questioned by Dimmendaal (2008).Gerrit Dimmendaal (2008) "Language Ecology and Linguistic Diversity on the African Continent", Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5:841.
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 Khoisan populations there.Martin H. Steinberg, Disorders of Hemoglobin: Genetics, Pathophysiology, and Clinical Management, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 717.
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 (sometimes with Defaka as Ijoid), 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 (2015).
The proposed Savannas group combines Adamawa, Ubangian and Gur. Outside of the Savannas group, Volta–Congo comprises Kru, Kwa (or "West Kwa"), Volta–Niger (also "East Kwa" or "West Benue–Congo"), and Benue–Congo (or "East 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 (2015), 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 (2012) 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 (2019) does not accept that the Kordofanian branches (Lafofa, Talodi and Heiban) 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.Hans G. Mukarovsky, A Study of Western Nigritic, 2 vols. (1976–1977). Blench (2004): "Almost simultaneously [with Greenberg (1963)], Mukarovsky (1976–7) published his analysis of 'Western Nigritic'. Mukarovsky's basic theme was the relationship between the reconstructions of Bantu of Guthrie and other writers and the languages of West Africa. Mukarovsky excluded Kordofanian, Mande, Ijo, Dogon, Adamawa-Ubangian and most Bantoid languages for unknown reasons, thus reconstructing an idiosyncratic grouping. Nonetheless, he buttressed his argument with an extremely valuable compilation of data, establishing the case for Bantu/Niger-Congo genetic link beyond reasonable doubt."
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 (2010). The largest language of this group is Mooré), with over 12 million speakers. Gur and Adamawa-Ubangi have also been grouped as Savannas languages. Senufo: languages of the Senufo people (about 3 million speakers as of 2010), 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