VI.

The Niger-Congo Family

The largest African languages family comprising over 1,400 languages, this family includes several subfamilies, including Kordofanian, Mande, and Atlantic-Congo, which is further subcategorized into subfamilies including Benue-Congo, Atlantic, Gur, Kwa, and Ijoid. Of these, the Kordofanian languages number only 31, all with small populations; they are found in a small area of the Nuba hills in southern Sudan, surrounded by languages of the Nilo-Saharan family and by Arabic. The Atlantic-Congo linguistic area, on the other hand, comprises almost all of the African continent south of the Sahara Desert. Although migrations presumably separated certain branches of this subfamily more than 5,000 years ago, languages in each of the branches have similar words for many common objects and actions; the still more distantly related Kordofanian languages have a few such similar words and show some striking resemblances to the Atlantic-Congo languages in grammatical structure.

In the Benue-Congo subfamily a relationship exists among most of the languages of southern and central Africa that has been recognized for more than a century. These languages have become widely known as Bantu (a word meaning “the people” in many languages of the group). Some of the more important Bantu languages are Zulu and Xhosa in South Africa; Makua in Mozambique; Nyanja in Malawi; Shona in Zimbabwe; Bemba in Zambia; Kimbundu and Umbundu in Angola; Swahili and Sukuma in Tanzania; Kikuyu in Kenya; Ganda in Uganda; Rwanda in Rwanda; Rundi in Burundi; Ngala and Kongo in the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Fang and Bulu in Cameroon. Bantu-speaking authors have developed a vibrant literary tradition in their indigenous languages over the past 50 years.

The Bantu languages do not constitute a separate family, but should logically be grouped with certain languages of Nigeria, such as Tiv and Birom. All these languages together are part of the Benue-Congo subfamily. Also from this branch are important languages such as Yoruba (22 million speakers), Igbo (18 million), and Efik (2.4 million) in Nigeria.

North of the Bantu language area, in the north of the Republic of the Congo and adjacent territory, is a branch of the Volta-Congo subfamily, the North branch. Its largest branches are Zande and Ngbandi languages; an Ngbandi-based creole known as Sango is widely used as a lingua franca in the Central African Republic, and is growing in importance. Extending from western Nigeria into much of Côte d'Ivoire and Mali, are the languages of the Gur branch, including Mòoré in Burkina Faso, with about 5 million speakers.

In a strip along the west coast from south-eastern Nigeria to Liberia are found the languages of the Kwa branch. This branch includes such important languages as Ewe in Togo and Ghana; Akan in Ghana; and Anyin in Côte d'Ivoire. Some of these languages are used in schools, and a small but growing body of published literature exists.

Along the Atlantic coast, from Liberia to the desert north of Dakar, are several languages of the Atlantic branch. These include Themne in Sierra Leone, Wolof in the vicinity of Dakar, and Fulani, a group of nine closely related languages, by far the most widely spoken. The three large concentrations of Fulani-speaking people are in Guinea (Jalon Fuuta), eastern Nigeria (Nigerian Fulfulde), and Senegal (Pulaar). Between these widely separated areas, Fulani-speaking people live in small groups; traditionally they are semi-nomadic pastoralists, living in numerous camps in which they raise their cattle and sell meat, milk, and butter to neighbouring peoples. Fulani is not, as has sometimes been thought, from the Afro-Asiatic language family.

Speakers of languages of the Mande branch inhabit most of the remaining portion of West Africa. One Mande language, known as Bambara, is spoken by up to 3 million people from Senegal through much of Mali and northern Guinea and into northern Côte d'Ivoire. Other important Mande languages are Mende in Sierra Leone and Kpelle in Liberia. Small islands of Mande-language speakers are also scattered through areas farther east, as far as western Nigeria. The Mande languages are believed to be the oldest offshoots of the parent Niger-Congo language spoken more than 5,000 years ago.