West Atlantic languages
The West Atlantic languages (also the Atlantic languages or North Atlantic languages) of West Africa are a major subgroup of the Niger–Congo languages.
| West Atlantic | |
|---|---|
| Atlantic | |
| (obsolete) | |
| Geographic distribution | Westernmost Africa |
| Linguistic classification | Niger–Congo?
|
| Glottolog | None |
The Atlantic languages are spoken along the Atlantic coast from Senegal to Liberia, though transhumant Fula speakers have spread eastward and are found in large numbers across the Sahel, from Senegal to Nigeria, Cameroon and Sudan. Wolof of Senegal and several of the Fula languages are the most populous Atlantic languages, with several million speakers each. Other significant members include Serer and the Jola dialect cluster of Senegal. Temne, a major language of Sierra Leone, was included in the Atlantic subgroup in earlier classifications but in modern proposals, it is no longer grouped within Atlantic.
Most Atlantic languages exhibit consonant mutation and have noun-class systems similar to those of the distantly related Bantu languages. Some languages are tonal, while others such as Wolof have pitch-accent systems. The basic word order tends to be SVO.