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Niger-Congo

American  
[nahy-jer-kong-goh] / ˈnaɪ dʒərˈkɒŋ goʊ /

noun

  1. a subfamily of Niger-Kordofanian, that comprises a large number of languages of Africa, as Ewe, Ibo, Yoruba, and the Bantu languages, spoken in nearly all of the equatorial forest region and in much of southern Africa.


adjective

  1. of, belonging to, or constituting Niger-Congo.

Niger-Congo British  

noun

  1. a family of languages of Africa consisting of the Bantu languages together with most of the languages of the coastal regions of West Africa. The chief branches are Benue-Congo (including Bantu), Kwa, Mande, and West Atlantic

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. relating to or belonging to this family of languages

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Fon is part of the Niger-Congo family of languages, meaning it shares a common ancestral lineage, with languages spoken in parts of West, Central, East and Southern Africa.

From BBC

In particular, Afroasiatic speakers mostly prove to be people who would be classified as whites or blacks, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speakers prove to be blacks, Khoisan speakers Khoisan, and Austronesian speakers Indonesian.

From Literature

Both Swahili and the Ndebele languages belong to the Bantu family, a branch of the Niger-Congo languages spoken among a network of sub-Saharan ethnic groups.

From Time

The fragmented distribution of Nilo-Saharan languages in Figure 19.2 similarly implies that many speakers of those languages have been engulfed by speakers of Afroasiatic or Niger-Congo languages.

From Literature

In addition, Xhosa and a few other Niger-Congo languages of southern Africa are full of clicks.

From Literature