distribution:
classification:
Atlantic-Congo
Benue-Congo
Plateau ?
Some important branches of the Volta-Niger and Benue-Congo families are concentrated in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin.| Benue-Congo | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Subsaharan Africa, from Nigeria east and south |
| Genetic classification: |
Niger-Congo Atlantic-Congo Benue-Congo |
| Subdivisions: |
Plateau ?
|
| 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 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 main branches of the Benue-Congo family, along with the most important languages in terms of number of speakers, are as follows (with number of constituent languages for each sub-branch in parenthesis):
The original Plateau grouping was a geographic rather than genealogical group, though the languages listed here as Plateau may form a valid family.
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