The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 70 languages belonging to this group. They are spoken in the sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in Burkina Faso, southern Mali, northeastern Côte d'Ivoire, the northern halves of Ghana and Togo, northwestern Benin, and southwestern Niger; with the easternmost Gur language Baatonun, spoken in the extreme northwest of Nigeria.

Like most Niger–Congo languages, the ancestor of Gur languages probably had a noun class system; many of today's languages have reduced this to a system of nominal genders or declensions or no longer have a class system. A common property of Gur languages is the verbal aspect marking. Gur languages are tonal. The tonal systems of Gur languages are rather divergent. Most Gur languages have a two tone downstep system.

Koelle first mentions twelve Gur languages in his 1854 Polyglotta Africana, which represent ten languages in modern classification. Notably, he correctly identified these languages as being related to one another; his 'North-Eastern High Sudan' corresponds to Gur in modern classification.