Niger-Congo Languages

Niger-Congo languages, a family of languages of Africa, which in terms of the number of languages spoken, their geographic extent, and the number of speakers is by far the largest language family in Africa. The area in which these languages are spoken stretches from Dakar, Senegal, at the westernmost tip of the continent, east to Mombasa in Kenya and south to Cape Town, South Africa. Excluding northern Africa (Mauritania to Egypt and Sudan) and the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia to Somalia), some 85 percent of the population of Africa—at least 600 million people—speak a Niger-Congo language. In two countries, Niger and Chad, Niger-Congo languages are spoken by a minority. In northern Nigeria, northern Uganda, and Kenya there are substantial populations speaking other languages, but even in these countries the majority of the population speaks a Niger-Congo language.

The latest estimation of the number of Niger-Congo languages is about 1,400. All of these are considered to be distinct languages and not simply dialects. The named dialects of these languages number many thousands more, not to mention the variant names for those languages and dialects. For example, Swahili alone has 17 separate dialects and 15 additional variant names for some of the dialects.

With such a huge language family spread so widely across a vast continent, the question naturally arises: If these languages are genetically related, where was their original homelandBenue-Congo languages (which account for half of the Niger-Congo family) there is evidence pointing to an original homeland in the area of the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers. Over many centuries, the peoples of the Benue-Congo group spread out mostly south and east. Beyond Williamson’s rather convincing hypothesis and broadening the discussion to all the other branches of Niger-Congo, there is no consensus among scholars as to the origins and historical development of Niger-Congo languages.