Benue Congo languages
The Benue Congo languages together with the Kwa languages form the southern branch of the Volta Congo languages , a primary branch of the Niger Congo .
The approximately 900 Benue Congo languages are spoken by over 270 million people in West, Central and South Africa. The Benue Congo is divided into two unequal genetic subunits , namely West Benue Congo (70 languages with almost 50 million speakers in Togo , Benin and Nigeria ) and East Benue Congo (830 languages with 225 million speakers in the southeast -Nigeria and all of Central and South Africa ). East Benue Congo in particular includes the large family of Bantu languages .
Development of the term
The name Benue Congo was coined by Joseph Greenberg in 1963, who divided this group into four units: Platoid, Jukunoid, Cross River and Bantoid. According to Shimizu (1975) and Gerhardt (in Bendor-Samuel 1989), Platoid and Jukunoid were combined as Central Nigerian . Bennett and Sterk (1977) extended Benue-Congo to include the eastern groups of Greenberg's Kwa , namely Yoruboid, Edoid, Igboid, Nupoid and Idomoid. These groups were then united by Blench in 1989 as West Benue Congo , while the original Greenberg Benue Congo became East Benue Congo . Ohiri-Aniche suspected in 1999 that the Ukaan language (perhaps together with the Akpes) forms a link between West and East Benue Congo, while Connell (1998) suggested the Cross River as such a link. In the present classification according to Williamson-Blench (in Heine-Nurse 2000), Cross River is included in the East Benue Congo, while Ukaan and Akpes (which may form a unit) are included in the West Benue Congo.
Classification of the Benue Congo
Classification of the Benue-Congo according to Williamson-Blench 2000
-
Benue Congo
- West Benue Congo
-
East Benue Congo
- Platoid or Central Nigerian
- Bantoid Cross
The linguistic properties of the Benue Congo languages are discussed in the articles West Benue Congo , Platoid Languages , Cross River and Bantoid Languages .
The main Benue Congo languages
The following table lists the Benue-Congo languages with at least 3 million speakers, including their number of speakers (including second speakers), their abbreviated classification and their area of distribution. There are a total of 26 Benue-Congo languages with at least 3 million speakers, of which all except Yoruba , Igbo and Efik belong to the Bantu languages .
Benue Congo languages with at least 3 million speakers
language | Alternative name |
Number of speakers |
Classification | Main distribution area |
---|---|---|---|---|
Swahili | Kiswahili | 30-40 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu G40 | Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Mozambique |
Yoruba | Yariba | 20-30 million | West Benue Congo, Yoruboid | Southwest Nigeria, Benin, Togo |
Igbo | Ibo | 18 million | West Benue Congo, Igboid | Southeast Nigeria |
Shona | Chishona | 11 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S10 | Zimbabwe, Zambia |
Zulu | Isizulu | 10 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S40 | South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi |
Nyanja | Chichewa | 10 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu N30 | Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique |
Lingála | Ngala | 9 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu C40 | Congo, Congo-Brazzaville |
Rwanda | Kinyarwanda | 8 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu J60 | Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Congo |
Xhosa | Isixhosa | 7.5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S40 | South Africa, Lesotho |
Luba Kasai | Chiluba | 6.5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu L30 | Congo |
Gikuyu | Kikuyu | 5.5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu E20 | Kenya |
Kituba | Kutuba | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu H10 | Kongo, Kongo-Brazzaville ( Congo-based Creole language ) |
Ganda | Luganda | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu J10 | Uganda |
Rundi | Kirundi | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu J60 | Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda |
Makhuwa | Makua | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu P30 | Mozambique |
Sotho | Sesotho | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S30 | Lesotho, South Africa |
Tswana | Setswana | 5 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S30 | Botswana, South Africa |
Mbundu | Umbundu | 4 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu R10 | Angola (Benguela) |
Pedi | Sepedi, North Sotho | 4 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S30 | South Africa, Botswana |
Luyia | Luluyia | 3.6 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu J30 | Kenya |
Bemba | Chibemba | 3.6 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu M40 | Zambia, Congo |
Tsonga | Xitsonga | 3.3 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu S50 | South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe |
Sukuma | Kisukuma | 3.2 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu F20 | Tanzania |
Kamba | Kikamba | 3 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu E20 | Kenya |
Mbundu | Kimbundu | 3 million | East Benue Congo, Bantu H20 | Angola (Luanda) |
Efik | Calabar | 2-3 million | East Benue Congo, Cross River | Nigeria (Cross River State) |
The speaker numbers are based on the Benue Congo Classification web link below. Congo stands for the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Congo-Brazzaville for the Republic of the Congo .
The class prefixes for Bantu language names (e.g. ki-, chi-, lu-, se-, isi- ) are usually no longer used in linguistic literature today. In this article, too, the short form is used without a prefix, e.g. B. Ganda instead of Luganda ; the long form with prefix is given as an alternative name. The numbers of the Bantu languages (e.g. G40) reflect the division into the Guthrie zones (G40 = Zone G, group of ten 40; see Bantu languages).
See also
- West Benue Congo languages
- East Benue Congo languages
- Platoid languages
- Cross-river languages
- Bantoid languages
literature
African languages
- Joseph Greenberg: The Languages of Africa. Mouton, The Hague and Indiana University Center, Bloomington 1963.
- Bernd Heine and others (ed.): The languages of Africa. Buske, Hamburg 1981.
- Bernd Heine , Derek Nurse (Ed.): African Languages. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2000, ISBN 0-521-66178-1 . Inside: Kay Williamson and Roger Blench: Niger-Congo.
- John Bendor-Samuel (Ed.): The Niger-Congo Languages: A Classification and Description of Africa's Largest Language Family. University Press of America, Lanham, New York, London 1989.
Therein: Kay Williamson: Benue-Congo Overview.
For classification
- Merritt Ruhlen: A Guide to the World's Languages. Classification. Arnold, Stanford 1987.
- Diedrich Westermann: The western Sudan languages and their relationship to Bantu. Announcements from the seminar for oriental languages. Berlin 1927.
- Joseph Greenberg: Studies in African Linguistic Classification. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 1949-1950.
- Kiyoshi Shimizu: A Lexicostatistical Study of Plateau Languages and Jukun. Anthropological Linguistics 17th 1975.
- Patrick Bennett and Jan Sterk: South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification. Studies in African Linguistics. 1977.
- Ludwig Gerhardt: Kainji and Platoid. In: Bendor-Samuel 1989.
- Chinyere Ohiri-Aniche: Language Diversification in the Akoko Area of Western Nigeria. In: Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs: Language and Archeology IV. Routledge, London 1999.