Bantoid languages

Bantoid is a putative major division of the Benue–Congo

branch of the Niger–Congo language family. It consists
Bantoid
of the Mambiloid languages (including two outlying (dubious)
languages sometimes not included in Mambiloid, Ndoro Geographic Sub-Saharan Africa, but not
and Fam), the Dakoid languages and the Tikar language, distribution farther west than Nigeria
all in Nigeria and Cameroon, and the Southern Bantoid
languages, a major division which also includes the Linguistic Niger–Congo
Bantu languages spoken across most of Sub-Saharan classification
Atlantic–Congo
Africa.
Volta-Congo
Benue–Congo

Contents Bantoid

History Subdivisions Northern Bantoid

Internal classification Southern Bantoid

References Glottolog bant1294 (http://glottolog.or

g/resource/languoid/id/bant129
External links
4)[1]

History
The term "Bantoid" was first used by Krause in 1895 for
languages that showed resemblances in vocabulary to
Bantu. Joseph Greenberg, in his 1963 The Languages of
Africa, defined Bantoid as the group to which Bantu
belongs together with its closest relatives; this is the
sense in which the term is still used today.

However, according to Roger Blench, the Bantoid

languages probably do not actually form a coherent
group.[2]
The Bantoid languages shown within the Niger–
Internal classification Congo language family. Non-Bantoid languages
are greyscale.
A proposal that divided Bantoid into North Bantoid and
South Bantoid was introduced by Williamson.[3][4] In this proposal, the Mambiloid and Dakoid languages
(and later Tikar) are grouped together as North Bantoid, while everything else Bantoid is subsumed under
South Bantoid; Ethnologue uses this classification.

The phylogenetic unity of the North Bantoid group is sometimes thought to be questionable, and the Dakoid
languages are often now placed outside Bantoid. But the work did establish Southern Bantoid as a valid
genetic unit. Southern Bantoid includes the well known and numerous Bantu languages.[5]
 The Bantoid branches of Nigeria and Cameroon

References
1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Bantoid" (http://glotto
log.org/resource/languoid/id/bant1294). Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for
the Science of Human History.
2. Roger Blench. "Niger-Congo: an alternative view" (http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger
-Congo/General/Niger-Congo%20an%20alternative%20view.pdf) (PDF). Rogerblench.info.
pp. 2, 4. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
3. Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Niger–Congo Overview'. In: The Niger–Congo languages, ed. by John
Bendor-Samuel, 3–45. University Press of America.
4. Blench, Roger [1987] 'A new classification of Bantoid languages.' Unpublished paper
presented at 17th Colloquium on African Languages and Linguistics, Leiden.
5. Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger–Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek
(eds) African Languages – An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11–
42.

External links
Kirill Babaev, Reconstructing Bantoid Pronouns (https://web.archive.org/web/2011081001440
2/http://www.nostratic.ru/benue-congo1.pdf)
Journal of West African Languages: Bantoid languages (https://web.archive.org/web/20120302
065010/http://www.journalofwestafricanlanguages.org/Bantoid.aspx)

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