Southern Bantoid languages
branch of the Bantoid family of Niger–Congo languages
The Southern Bantoid languages are a group of African languages of the Niger-Congo language family. This group was first described by Kay Williamson in 1989. Williamson described a way of splitting the Bantoid languages into two groups, North and South.
| Southern Bantoid | |
|---|---|
| Wide Bantu | |
| Geographic distribution: | Subsaharan Africa, but not further west than Nigeria |
| Linguistic classification: | Niger–Congo
|
| Subdivisions: |
Mamfe (Nyang)
? Mbam
(Narrow) Bantu (unity in doubt)
|
According to the Ethnologue, there are 643 languages in the Southern Bantoid group. Many of these languages are mutually intelligible (someone who is speaking one language can be understood by someone who speaks another language.) The group includes a number of smaller language families:[1]
- Narrow Bantu languages
- Jarawan languages
- Tivoid languages
- Beboid languages
- Mamfe languages
- Grassfields languages
- Ekoid languages
There are also some languages in the Southern Bantoid group that have not been classified into one of these language families.
References
change- ↑ Williamson & Blench 2000, pp. 34–5.
Bibliography
change- Williamson, Kay; Blench, Roger (2000), "Niger-Congo", in Heine, Bernard; Nurse, Derek (eds.), African Languages – An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–42