NigerCongospeaking

Niger-Congo is a large language family spoken primarily in Africa. It is one of the world's most widely spoken language families, with over 1,500 languages and over 400 million native speakers. The family is divided into several branches, including:

Bantu: Spoken by the majority of Africans, Bantu languages are the largest group within Niger-Congo, with over 500 languages. They are spoken in countries such as Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Africa.

Kordofanian: Includes languages like Kanuri and Nubian, spoken in countries like Nigeria, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Adamawa-Ubangi: Includes languages like Yoruba and Igbo, spoken in countries like Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.

Mande: Includes languages like Mandinka and Dyula, spoken in countries like Senegal, Guinea, and Mali.

Niger-Congo languages are known for their tonal qualities, with many languages having three or more tones. They also have complex systems of noun classes and verb agreement. The family's diversity reflects the continent's rich cultural and linguistic heritage, with languages evolving in response to different historical, geographical, and social factors.

Despite their diversity, Niger-Congo languages share some common features, such as the use of prefixes to indicate tense and aspect, and the presence of click consonants in some languages. The family's internal classification is an active area of linguistic research, with new languages and dialects continually being discovered and described.

The Niger-Congo language family is not to be confused with the Nilo-Saharan language family, another large language family spoken in Africa. The two families are distinct and do not share a common ancestor.