query: instance_of grassfields bantu languages
supports: The Central African Republic (CAR; Sango: "Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka";   , or "" ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo to the southwest and Cameroon to the west. The CAR covers a land area of about and had an estimated population of around 4.7 million . The Federal Republic of Nigeria , commonly referred to as Nigeria, is a federal republic in West Africa, bordering Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja is located. Its largest cities include: Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Benin City and Port Harcourt. Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country. In the classification of African languages, Bantoid is a putative branch of the BenueCongo branch of the NigerCongo family. The term 'Bantoid' was first used by Krause in 1895 for languages that showed resemblances in vocabulary to Bantu. Greenberg in his 1963 "The Languages of Africa" defined Bantoid as the group to which (Narrow) Bantu belongs together with its closest relatives; this is the sense in which the term is still used today. The Bantoid languages probably do not actually form a coherent group. The Bantu languages, technically the Narrow Bantu languages (as opposed to "Wide Bantu", a loosely defined categorization which includes other Bantoid languages), constitute a traditional branch of the NigerCongo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and "Ethnologue" counts 535 languages. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of present-day Cameroon, that is, in the regions commonly known as Central Africa, Southeast Africa, and Southern Africa. Parts of the Bantu area include languages from other language families (see map). The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans with a total area of about . It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World". The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Three Points in Western region Ghana. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the gulf. Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country located in Central Africa, with an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name evokes its location near both the Equator and the Gulf of Guinea. Equatorial Guinea is the only sovereign African state in which Spanish is an official language. , the country has an estimated population of over 1.2 million. Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Republic of the Congo, also known as the Congo Republic, West Congo, Congo-Brazzaville or simply Congo, is a country located in Central Africa. It is bordered by five countries: Gabon and the Atlantic Ocean to the west; Cameroon to the northwest; the Central African Republic to the northeast; the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the east and south; and the Angolan exclave of Cabinda to the southwest. Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web-based publication that contains statistics for 7,457 languages in its 19th edition, which was released in 2016. Of these, 7,097 are listed as living and 360 are listed as extinct. "Ethnologue" provides information on the number of speakers, location, dialects, linguistic affiliations, availability of the Bible in each language and dialect described, and an estimate of language viability using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS). The publication is well respected and widely used by linguists.  Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. Middle Africa (as used by the United Nations when categorising geographic subregions) is an analogous term that includes Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and São Tomé and Príncipe. All of the states in the UN subregion of Middle Africa, plus those otherwise commonly reckoned in Central Africa (11 states in total), constitute the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has also been commonly included in the region. Chad ('), officially the Republic of Chad ('), is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest and Niger to the west. It is the fifth largest country in Africa in terms of area. Gabon, officially the Gabonese Republic, is a sovereign state on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, Gabon is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west. It has an area of nearly and its population is estimated at 1.5 million people. Its capital and largest city is Libreville. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is generally used as the most important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. The NigerCongo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question is complicated by ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language. The Grassfields or Grassfields Bantu languages , spoken in the Western grassfields of Cameroon , are a branch of Benue -- Congo and a sister group to the Bantu languages . Better - known Grassfields languages include the Eastern Grassfields languages Bamun , Yamba , and Bamileke , and the Ring language Kom . The languages are closely related , sharing approximately half of their vocabulary . The Grassfields languages were previously known as Grassfields Bantu and Semi-Bantu . They are sometimes classified on two levels , Wide Grassfields , which includes all the languages , and Narrow Grassfields , which excludes Menchum , Ambele , and sometimes the Southwestern Grassfields languages . These may form a group of their own , which Nurse ( 2003 ) calls Peripheral Grassfields but rejects . Blench ( 2010 ) notes there is little evidence for the traditional assumption that non-Western Momo belongs in Grassfields , and that it may actually be closer to the poorly established Tivoid group ; Western Momo is therefore renamed Southwest Grassfields to avoid confusion , and only Menchum and Ambele are left out of Narrow Grassfields . The classification of Amebele is unclear , though it is clearly divergent , and Menchum may be closer to the Tivoid languages ( Blench 2011 ) . Blench ( 2012 ) suggests that Western Beboid may belong here . Narrow Grassfields Ring ( Ring Road ) Eastern Grassfields ( Mbam -- Nkam ) ? Ndemli Southwest Grassfields ( previously Western Momo ) ? Ambele ? Menchum ( Befang ) ? Western Beboid Viti ( Vötö ) is unclassified Narrow Grasslands . Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics, and including several countries.
  The term "southern Africa" or "Southern Africa", generally includes Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. From a political perspective the region is said to be unipolar with South Africa as a first regional power.
candidates: area bible bight branch cape categorization classification coast colony community continent country criterion day extinct family federal capital federal republic five geography group gulf intersection landlocked country language language family map may meridian name number ocean official part perspective prime meridian publication region relationship republic state surface term
answer: language family