NIGER-CONGO

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Niger-Congo mean? 

• NIGER-CONGO (noun)
  The noun NIGER-CONGO has 1 sense:

1. a family of African language spoken in west Africa

  Familiarity information: NIGER-CONGO used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NIGER-CONGO (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A family of African language spoken in west Africa

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("Niger-Congo" is a kind of...):

Niger-Kordofanian; Niger-Kordofanian language (the family of languages that includes most of the languages spoken in Africa south of the Sahara; the majority of them are tonal languages but there are important exceptions (e.g., Swahili or Fula))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Niger-Congo"):

Sango (a trade language widely used in Chad)

Bantoid language; Bantu (a family of languages widely spoken in the southern half of the African continent)

Gur; Voltaic (a group of Niger-Congo languages spoken primarily in southeastern Mali and northern Ghana)

West African (a group of languages spoken in the extreme western part of West Africa)

Mande (a group of African languages in the Niger-Congo group spoken from Senegal east as far as the Ivory Coast)

Kwa (a group of African language in the Niger-Congo group spoken from the Ivory Coast east to Nigeria)