Benue-Congo languages
| Benue–Congo | |
|---|---|
| East Benue–Congo | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Subsaharan Africa, from Nigeria east and south |
| Linguistic classification: |
Niger–Congo
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| Subdivisions: |
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| Glottolog: | benu1247 |
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 Ethnologue (2009) counts 900, and in terms of speakers, numbering perhaps 350 million. Within Niger–Congo, Benue–Congo is a branch of Atlantic–Congo, and Volta–Congo. When it was first proposed by Joseph Greenberg (1963) it included the Volta–Niger languages (as West Benue–Congo); the boundary with those languages and with Kwa has been repeatedly debated. Blench (2012) states that if Benue–Congo is taken to be "the noun-class languages east and north of the Niger", it is likely to be a valid group, though no demonstration of this has been made in print.
The branches of the Benue–Congo family are thought to be as follows:
Ukaan is also related to Benue–Congo; Roger Blench suspects it may be either the most divergent (East) Benue–Congo language, or the closest relative to Benue–Congo.
Fali of Baissa and Tita are also Benue–Congo, but are otherwise unclassified.
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