Congo-Kordofanian

or Niger-Kordofanian, a hypothetical macrofamily of African languages, which, according to the theory of the American linguist J. Greenberg, includes two branches, the Niger-Congo languages and the Kordofanian languages.

The groups of languages that belong to the Niger-Congo branch are (1) the West Atlantic languages in West Africa; (2) the Mande languages in West Africa; (3) Gur in West Africa; (4) the Kwa languages along the coast of Guinea; (5) the Benue-Congo languages, including a number of languages in northern and eastern Nigeria and in northern Cameroon (Kambari, Katab, Birom, Jukun, Ibibio, Tiv, Bute, etc.) and the Bantu language group; and (6) the Adamawa-Eastern languages in Nigeria, Cameroon, and the countries of Central Africa. Typologically, the Congo-Kordofanian languages are quite diverse (agglutinative, root-isolating, and more rarely inflective). A system of nominative classes is typical for most of the Congo-Kordofanian languages.