Benue–Congo
East Benue–Congo
Geographic distribution:	Subsaharan Africa, from Nigeria east and south
Linguistic classification:	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo
Subdivisions:	Bantoid Cross River Central Nigerian (Platoid) Ukaan ? Fali of Baissa ?
Some important branches of the Volta–Niger and Benue–Congo families are concentrated in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin.

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 perhaps also of 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 (as West Benue–Congo); the boundary with those languages and with Kwa has been repeatedly debated.

The branches of the Benue–Congo family, along with the estimated number of constituent languages, are thought to be as follows:

• Bantoid–Cross
  • Bantoid (≈700)
  • Cross River (68)
• Central Nigerian AKA Platoid
  • Jukunoid (20)
  • Kainji (58)
  • Plateau (46)
    • Tarokoid (5)
    • Plateau proper

Ukaan is also related to Benue–Congo; Roger Blench suspects it may be either the most divergent language (East) Benue–Congo language, or the closest relative to Benue–Congo.

Fali of Baissa may also be Benue–Congo, but is otherwise unclassified.

References[link]

• Wolf, Paul Polydoor de (1971) The Noun Class System of Proto-Benue–Congo (Thesis, Leiden University). The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
• Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Benue–Congo Overview', pp. 248–274 in Bendor-Samuel, John & Rhonda L. Hartell (eds.) The Niger–Congo Languages – A classification and description of Africa's largest language family. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.

Wikimedia[link]

• Systematic graphic of the Niger–Congo languages with numbers of speakers

External links[link]

• Ethnologue report for the Benue–Congo language family
• Web resources for the Benue–Congo languages
• Journal of West African Languages: Benue-Congo

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