Niger–Congo Languages

The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question is complicated by ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language. Most of the most widely spoken indigenous languages of Subsaharan Africa belong to this group. A common property of many Niger–Congo languages is the use of a noun class system. The most widely spoken Niger–Congo languages by number of native speakers are Yoruba, Igbo, Fula and Shona and Zulu. The most widely spoken by total number of speakers is Swahili. Some scholars have doubted whether the Niger-Congo languages is a valid genetic unit or rather a typological grouping, but specialists today consider it to be a valid phylum, although there is no consensus on the subclassification.