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C.3.1 Inclusion of Bantu within Niger-Congo
In the mid nineteenth century, several researchers noted the genetic relationship
between Bantu and West African languages (cf. Cole 1971, Williamson 1989a: 4-6,
Watters 1989: 403). However, during the first half of the twentieth century, most scholars
began to treat Bantu as a separate language family on typological grounds, and were
often influenced by paleontology and biology. This tradition became so established that
when Westermann (1927) posited a “West Sudanic” group comprising the languages
west of Lake Chad, he excluded Bantu from this group, even though he himself identified
resemblances between Proto-West Sudanic and Proto-Bantu, both in basic vocabulary
and in noun class structure (cf. Greenberg 1970: 31ff). Westermann (1949) later mentions
explicitly the genetic relationship of the two groups.
Greenberg was thus not the first researcher to identify the genetic relationship of
Bantu to West Sudanic. Rather, his major contribution was identifying how Bantu is
situated within West Sudanic. He places it within the Benue-Congo subgroup, and then
renames the entire group Niger-Congo. 4 I will use the term “West Sudanic” to refer to the
Niger-Congo languages excluding Bantu.
Greenberg uses evidence from Westermann to support his claim that Bantu should
be included in West Sudanic. First, he points out that there are many resemblances
between Proto-West Sudanic and Proto-Bantu in terms of fundamental vocabulary. These
data show regular sound correspondences. Second, he notes that the noun class affixes of
Proto-West Sudanic resemble those of Proto-Bantu both in form and meaning. In fact, he
notes that the percentage of nouns in Bantu which show resemblance to Proto-West
Sudanic is significantly greater than the percentage of nouns in English which can be
related to Proto-Indo-European.
4 It appears that Greenberg (1970) was unaware of the previous work establishing a relationship
between Bantu and West African languages. He writes (p. 37): “...all previous writers...accept the Bantu-
Sudanese dichotomy as fundamental in African linguistics.”
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