Page "Niger–Congo languages" Paragraph 6

Joseph Greenberg took Westermann's work as a starting-point for his own classification.

In a series of articles published between 1949 and 1954, he argued that Westermann's ' West Sudanic ' and Bantu formed a single genetic family, which he named Niger – Congo ; that Bantu constituted a subgroup of the Benue – Congo branch ; that Adamawa – Eastern, previously not considered to be related, was another member of this family ; and that Fula belonged to the West Atlantic languages.

Just before these articles were collected in final book form ( The Languages of Africa ) in 1963, he amended his classification by adding Kordofanian as a branch co-ordinate with Niger – Congo as a whole ; consequently, he renamed the family Congo – Kordofanian, later Niger – Kordofanian.

Greenberg's work on African languages, though initially greeted with scepticism, became the prevailing view among scholars.