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)
(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]

There are also some languages in the Southern Bantoid group that have not been classified into one of these language families.

References change

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

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