Hausa is a Chadic language that is spoken by the Hausa people in the northern parts of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern parts of Niger, and Chad, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast. A small number of speakers also exist in Sudan.
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic–Congo languages, and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger–Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of the number of distinct languages, just ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.
Sango is the primary language spoken in the Central African Republic and also the co-official language of the country. It is used as a lingua franca across the country and had 450,000 native speakers in 1988. It also has 1.6 million second language speakers.
Defaka is an endangered and divergent Nigerian language of uncertain classification. It is spoken in the Opobo–Nkoro LGA of Rivers State, in the Defaka or Afakani ward of Nkọrọ town and Ịwọma Nkọrọ. The low number of Defaka speakers, coupled with the fact that other languages dominate the region where Defaka is spoken, edges the language near extinction on a year-to-year basis. It is generally classified in an Ijoid branch of the Niger–Congo family. However, the Ijoid proposal is problematic. Blench (2012) notes that "Defaka has numerous external cognates and might be an isolate or independent branch of Niger–Congo which has come under Ịjọ influence."
Kusaal is a Gur language spoken primarily in northern eastern Ghana, and Burkina Faso. It is spoken by about 121,000 people and takes its name from the Kusaal people, or Kusasi. There is a distinctive dialect division between Agole, to the East of the Volta River, and Toende, to the West. Agole has more speakers. The 6-district capital; Bawku West with Zebilla as capital and the rest; Binduri, Bawku, Tempane, Garu and Pusiga districts mostly Agole dialect speakers. The complete Bible translation is in the Agole dialect.
Tshangla is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the region; it is also spoken in the adjoining Tawang tract in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Pemako region of Tibet. Tshangla is the principal pre-Tibetan language of Bhutan.
There are over 525 native languages spoken in Nigeria. The official language and most widely spoken lingua franca is English, which was the language of Colonial Nigeria. Nigerian Pidgin – an English-based creole – is spoken by over 60 million people.
The Kainji languages are a group of about 60 related languages spoken in west-central Nigeria. They form part of the Central Nigerian (Platoid) branch of Benue–Congo.
Mbre or Pere, known as Pεrε among themselves and as Bεrε by the locally dominant Koro, also spelled Pre and Bre, is a moribund language of the Ivory Coast.
Akpes (Àbèsàbèsì) is an endangered language of Nigeria. It is spoken by approximately 7,000 speakers in the North of Ondo State. The language is surrounded by several other languages of the Akoko area, where Yoruba is the lingua franca. Yoruba replaces Akpes in more and more informal domains and thus forwards a gradual shift from Akpes towards Yoruba. Akpes is generally attributed to the Volta-Congo Branch of the Niger-Congo phylum.
Damakawa is a moribund Benue–Congo language of northwest Nigeria. The language has become extinct, there are no longer any speakers of the language, although the oldest people can remember a few words. Approximately 80 or so words and phrases were collected, with difficulty, in April 2008.
Bariba, also known as Baatonum, is the language of the Bariba people and was the language of the state of Borgu. The native speakers are called Baatombu, Barba, Baruba, Berba and a number of various other names and spellings.
u̠t-Ma'in or Fakai is a Northwest Kainji dialect continuum spoken by 36,000 people in Nigeria. There are numerous rather divergent dialects:
The East Kainji languages are spoken in a compact area of the Jos Plateau in Nigeria, near Jos. There are more than 20 of them, most of which are poorly studied.
The Anii is a Guan language is spoken in Benin, and central-eastern Togo and central eastern Ghana by Makכ-Makua or Bakכ-Bakua clan. It is part of the geographic group of Ghana Togo Mountain languages of the Kwa branch of Niger–Congo.
The Kamuku languages are a branch of the Kainji languages spoken by the Kamuku people of Niger State, western Nigeria, mostly in Mariga and Rafi LGAs.
Lela or C'lela is a Kainji language of Nigeria. It is known as Cilela in Hausa, and it is also known as Dakarkari, because it is spoken by the Dakarkari people
The Cinda-Regi language is a language complex of Nigeria belonging to the Kamuku branch of Kainji languages.
Bauchi is a cluster of Kainji languages spoken in Rafi, Nigeria LGA, Niger State, Nigeria.
Proto-Bantu is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Bantu languages, a subgroup of the Southern Bantoid languages. It is thought to have originally been spoken in West/Central Africa in the area of what is now Cameroon. About 6,000 years ago, it split off from Proto-Southern Bantoid when the Bantu expansion began to the south and east. Two theories have been put forward about the way the languages expanded: one is that the Bantu-speaking people moved first to the Congo region and then a branch split off and moved to East Africa; the other is that the two groups split from the beginning, one moving to the Congo region, and the other to East Africa.
