Talk:Niger–Congo languages

Navbox

I've added a navbox to see if we can come up with a nice template to navigate along the major subgroups of Niger-Congo. I've not added it to other articles yet because it needs to be polished a bit first. What do others think? — mark ✎ 14:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The box might be helpful in a later stage. This moment is just adds a third outline which even is not displayed properly in my FireFox browser on a wide screen. Currently I think adding more meat to the arcticle itself is of higher priority. For example which features a common to Niger-Congo languages (noun classes, serial verb constructions etc). Hirzel 08:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair point. I've parked it here for now. — mark ✎ 07:25, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm slowly expanding the article, having added a classification history and a bit on common features recently. Sections on tone, noun classes, and syntax will follow, and maybe a more detailed map. — mark ✎ 14:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The navbox has been superseded by the {{Infobox Language family}}. — mark ✎ 08:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the citation style template

There was a

warning at the top of the page from March 2014. Looking back at the 2014 version of the page, there was a mix of refs appearing in Notes with in-text citations and Further Reading. The page now has a good number of in-text citations. Newystats (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Acceptance

I have restored the description of Niger–Congo as "hypothetical" for two reasons.

1. The first is technical and still much more more than that: the citation "in favor" of Niger–Congo was incomplete. The authors of the chapter about Niger–Congo in Heine & Nurse's book are Kay Williamson and Roger Blench. Here's the quote again with a full citation:

• While some linguists suggest that Niger-Congo may be a typological group rather than a genetic family, the consensus among specialists is that it is a language family. However, the subclassification of languages within Niger–Congo is still subject to considerable debate (p.11).

The authorship of Willimason is relevant, because she was a major proponent for the genetic relationship between Mande and Atlantic–Congo. The statement that vaguely distinguishes between "linguists" and "specialists" thus comes from an involved party in Niger–Congo debate. To use this source as solely authoritative for an evaluation of the validity of Niger–Congo is quite problematic.

2. It is not hard to find sources which do not support Niger–Congo (in the meaning of Atlantic–Congo + Mande) as a given and valid language family. Here are just two recent examples:

• The term [Niger–Congo], as presently used, however, is not without its difficulties. On the one hand, it is employed as a referential label for a group of over 1,500 languages, putting it among the largest commonly cited language groups in the world. On the other hand, the term is also intended to embody a hypothesis of genealogical relationship between the referential NC languages that has not been proven (p.139). (emphasis added)

• Overall, unless more robust and systematic evidence is brought forward, the long-standing but vague idea that Mande is distant from the rest of Niger-Kordofanian as one of its earliest offshoots should give way to the neutral assessment that it is a family without a proven genealogical affiliation (p.192). (Less directly stated, but clearly not in favor of Niger–Congo = Atlantic–Congo + Mande)

There is simply no scholarly consensus about the validity of Niger–Congo. The books by Güldemann and Vossen & Dimmendaal are equally strong as sources as the volume by Heine & Nurse. So I support the characterization of Niger–Congo as "hypothetical" in the lede, since this correctly depicts the current state of research. –Austronesier (talk) 10:28, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the additional sources. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:52, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Add a question mark like in Nilo-Saharan

Hi a "?" Sign should be added to every language under it since this is a hypothetical language family and not yet proven valid. Its done for Nilo-Saharan to remind people and so should be done for this proposed language family as well. Wojak6 (talk) 06:33, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Validity and Genetic Unity of Niger-Congo

There is intense research going on among first speakers from Africa of Niger-Congo languages to firmly establish the genetic unity and validity of this language family.

However,there is a link here on a recent research that establishes the genetic unity:https://llacan.cnrs.fr/nigercongo2/abstracts/Grollemund_Hombert_Pagel-Genetic%20Unity%20of%20the%20Niger-Congo%20family.pdf

Therefore,referring to the language family as "hypothetical" might be wholly premature.Mwenemucii (talk) 11:20, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

We shouldn't take a 2016 conference abstract as the final word about the topic, especially since the methodology behind that piece of research (= phylogenetic statistical methods) is not generally accepted by historical linguists as a tool for "proving" genealogical relationships between languages and language families. And since the maximal version of Niger–Congo (i.e. including Mande and Ubangian) is not accepted by several experts in the field (e.g. Dimmendaal, Güldemann), we still have to use the label "hypothetical". Personally, I would favor to say that while Niger–Congo is established, its exact scope is controversial. But this would create a terminological fuzziness for which there is no consensus among editors that have been actively shaping this article and other related articles (see Talk:Atlantic–Congo_languages). –Austronesier (talk) 19:24, 3 April 2022 (UTC)