East Benue Congo languages

East Benue Congo is a subunit of the Benue Congo languages , a major branch of the Niger-Congo language family .

The languages ​​of East Benue Congo were originally classified as Benue Congo languages by Joseph Greenberg . East Benue Congo consists of the two subunits Platoid or Central Nigerian with 120 languages, spoken by 3.5 million speakers in Central Nigeria , and the Bantoid Cross with 710 languages, spoken by 220 million speakers in Nigeria, Central and South Africa. Bantoid Cross also contains the large family of Bantu languages .

West Benue Congo, Platoid, Cross River Languages, North Bantoid, South Bantoid except Bantu and the northwest corner of the Bantu area

Classification of the East Benue Congo

• East Benue Congo
  • Platoid or Central Nigerian
    • Kainji
    • Plateau ( multiple genetic units )
    • Tarocoid
    • Jukunoid
  • Bantoid Cross
    • Cross River
    • Bantoid
      • Northern Bantoid
        • Dakoid
        • Mambiloid
        • Ticaroid
      • Southern bantoid
        • Jarawoid
        • Tivoid
        • Beboid
        • Ekoid
        • Nyang
        • Grasslands
        • Bantu

It can be seen that the large group of Bantu languages (500 languages ​​with 210 million speakers) genetically represents only a sub-subunit within the Benue Congo.

Numbers of languages ​​and speakers, areas of distribution

The following table contains the number of languages ​​and speakers and their main distribution areas for the larger subgroups of East Benue Congo.

Sub-branch	Number of languages	Number of speakers	Main distribution area
Kainji	54	1 million	Northwest and North-Central Nigeria
plateau	43	2 million	North-Central Nigeria ( multiple genetic units )
Cross river	65	5.6 million	Nigeria: Cross River State; Cameroon
Dakoid	3	0.5 million	East Nigeria
Tivoid	18th	2.4 million	East Nigeria, West Cameroon
Grasslands	67	2.5 million	West Cameroon
Bantu	487	210 million	all of central and southern Africa

The term X-oid denotes a main language X with its closely related sister languages, e.g. B. Igboid is the group of languages ​​directly related to Igbo . As a rule, it is a dialect continua . Some researchers also consider such groups to be a single language.

See also

• Benue Congo 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 1949-50.
• Patrick Bennett and Jan Sterk: South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification. Studies in African Linguistics. 1977.

Web links

• Ernst Kausen, The Classification of the Benue-Congo Languages ​​within the Niger-Congo. (DOC; 232 kB)