Niger-congo

adj, name

adj, name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    a family of African language spoken in west Africa wordnet
Adjective
  1. 1
    Belonging to the Niger-Congo language family, or pertaining to its associated peoples. not-comparable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A major language family of sub-Saharan Africa noted for the use of a noun class system.

Example

More examples

"The Bantu languages are a subfamily of the Niger-Congo languages."

Etymology

Coined in the 1950s by Joseph Greenberg, from the name of the two principal rivers in the area this language family is spoken, the Niger River and the Congo River.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.