How many languages are spoken today from the Niger-Congo language family?
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How many languages are spoken today from the Niger-Congo language family?
Niger-Congo languages dominate sub-Saharan Africa, and the family constitutes one of the world’s largest referential language groups, with around fifteen hundred languages.
What percent of the world speaks a Niger-Congo language?
There are over 6900 languages currently spoken in the world….Language families by speakers.
| Language family | Approx. # of speakers | \% of world population |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Indo-European | 2.562 billion | 44.78\% |
| 2. Sino-Tibetan | 1.276 billion | 22.28\% |
| 3. Niger-Congo | 358 million | 6.26\% |
| 4. Afro-Asiatic | 340 million | 5.93\% |
What are the three most widely spoken languages in the Niger-Congo language family?
The most widely spoken Niger-Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Shona, Sesotho and Zulu. The most widely spoken by the total number of speakers is Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca in parts of eastern and southeastern Africa.
What four languages belong to the Niger-Congo family?
The languages of present-day Niger-Congo are divided into nine major branches: Mande, Kordofanian, Atlantic, Ijoid, Kru, Gur, Adamawa-Ubangi, Kwa, and Benue-Congo, which are shown in bold in the diagram.
Is Swahili tonal?
Swahili is one of the few African languages that doesn’t have a system of tones. Swahili is part of the Bantu language group; within this group, Swahili and its dialects are the only languages that don’t use tones.
Is Yoruba Bantu language?
No, the Yoruba are not Bantu. Yoruba belongs to the Niger-Congo family of languages.
Does Niger speak English?
The languages of Nigeria are classified into three broad linguistic groups: Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afro-Asiatic. It is the most widely spoken language, although English is the official language of Nigeria. In addition to English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, and English Creole are widely spoken.
Are the Igbos Bantu?
No, Igbos are not Bantu. The Igbo and the Bantu languages are deemed to be part of the Niger-Congo language family, but there’s a great deal that separates them.
Where is the Niger-Congo language spoken in Africa?
Excluding northern Africa (Mauritania to Egypt and Sudan) and the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia to Somalia), some 85 percent of the population of Africa—at least 600 million people—speak a Niger-Congo language. In two countries, Niger and Chad, Niger-Congo languages are spoken by a minority.
What are the syllables of Niger-Congo?
Syllables in Niger-Congo languages typically end in a vowel or nasal consonant. Consonant clusters are rare or nonexistent. Most Niger-Congo languages have two sets of vowels: one set is pronounced with an advanced tongue root [+ATR], the other set is pronounced with a retracted tone root [-ATR].
What is the tonal system in Niger-Congo?
Most of the Niger-Congo languages are tonal, with some exceptions such as Swahili. The properties of the tonal systems vary considerably. In some languages tones are used to represent grammatical categories, while in others they are used to distinguish between otherwise identical words.
When was the first book written in Niger-Congo?
The first extant book written in a Niger-Congo language was published in 1624. This 134-page book was the work of three Jesuit priests. It consists of a catechism in Portuguese with an interlinear translation into Kongo.