Niger Congo validity

Natural languages and linguistics
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Otto Kretschmer
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Niger Congo validity

Post by Otto Kretschmer »

Is Niger Congo considered valid? How about it's subdivisions?

IIRC proto Niger Congo was supposed to be spoken 9000 BC which is almost twice as long as the time that passed from PIE

The thread inspirrd by recent Youtube video by Costas Melas
vegfarandi
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Re: Niger Congo validity

Post by vegfarandi »

According to the Wikipedia article, it's described as "hypothetical". Reading further, there's certainly gaps in the evidence.
Duriac Threadhe/him
hwhatting
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Re: Niger Congo validity

Post by hwhatting »

vegfarandi wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:53 pm According to the Wikipedia article, it's described as "hypothetical". Reading further, there's certainly gaps in the evidence.
My understanding is some parts of it (like Volta-Congo) are not disputed; for other subfamilies (like Atlantic) it's not even clear whether they even constitute genetic families, not to mention being related to other presumed Niger-Congo-Groups.
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