What is Niger–Congo languages?
{{Infobox language family |name=Niger–Congo |altname=Niger–Kordofanian (obsolete) |region=[[Sub-Saharan Africa]] |familycolor=Niger-Congo |family=If valid, one of the world's primary [[language family|language families]] |child1=[[Dogon languages|Dogon]](inclusion disputed) |child3=[[Mande languages|Mande]] (inclusion disputed) |child2=[[Ijoid languages|Ijoid]] (inclusion disputed) |child4=[[Katla languages|Katla]] (Kordofanian)(inclusion disputed) |child5=[[Rashad languages|Rashad]] (Kordofanian) (inclusion disputed) |child6=[[Atlantic–Congo languages|Atlantic–Congo]] (noun classes) |iso2=nic |map=Niger-Congo-en.svg |mapcaption=Map showing the distribution of Niger–Congo languages (yellow). The area is divided into B (Bantu) and A (rest) to show the extent of the Bantu subfamily.}} [[file:Niger-Congo map.png|thumb|Map showing the localization of Niger Congo subgroups and important single languages of that family]] [[file:Nigeria Benin Cameroon languages.png|thumb|Map of languages of Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin,]] The '''Niger–Congo''' languages are a hypothetical [[language family]]. They are spoken in the southern half of [[Africa]]. They may be world's largest language family in terms of number of languages. Most of the most widely spoken languages of [[Subsaharan Africa]] belong to this group. A common part of many Niger-Congo languages is the use of a [[noun class]] system. The most widely spoken Niger-Congo languages by [[native]] speakers are [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]], [[Igbo language|Igbo]], [[Fula language|Fula]] and [[Shona language|Shona]]. The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is [[Swahili language|Swahili]]. [[Image:Niger-Congo speakers.png|thumb|600px|Subgroups and important single languages of the Niger-Congo family of languages.]] ==References== *Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Niger-Congo overview', in Bendor-Samuel & Hartell (eds.) ''The Niger-Congo Languages'', 3-45. *Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger-Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) ''African Languages -