Mel languages

Mel
	Southern (West) Atlantic [reduced]
Geographic; distribution	Guinea-Bissau through Liberia
Linguistic classification	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Mel; ;
Subdivisions	Temne; Sua–Kissi;
Glottolog	mela1257[1]

The Mel languages are a branch of Niger–Congo languages spoken in Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The most populous is Temne, with about two million speakers; Kissi is next, with half a million.

Languages

Mel has traditionally been classified as the bulk of a southern branch of a West Atlantic branch of Niger–Congo. However, these are geographic and typological rather than genealogical groups; Segerer (2010) shows that there is no exclusive relationship between Mel and the other southern languages, Sua (Mansoanka), Gola and Limba.

Mel

Temne

	Temne

	Baga languages

Bullom–Kissi

	Bullom languages

	Kissi

Fields (2004) splits Mel into a Highlands group originating in Guinea, and also a Bullom-Kisi-Gola group.[2]

Mel
- Bullom-Kisi-Gola
  - Gola
  - Bullom-Kisi
    - Bullom
    - Kisi
- Highlands
  - Temne
  - Landuma
  - Sitem

Fields (2008:83) proposes that the homeland of Proto-Mel is located in the north-central highlands of Sierra Leone just to the south of the Lesser Scarcies River, rather than on the coast. The homeland of Proto-Highlands is located along the middle stretches of the Konkoure River in Guinea, just to the northeast of Conakry (Fields 2008:85).[3]

Footnotes

Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mel". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Fields, Edda L. Before "Baga": Settlement Chronologies of the Coastal Rio Nunez Region, Earliest Times to c.1000 CE. In: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2004), pp. 229-253. Boston University African Studies Center.
Fields-Black, Edda L. 2008. Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. (Blacks in the Diaspora.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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References

Guillaume Segerer & Florian Lionnet 2010. "'Isolates' in 'Atlantic'". Language Isolates in Africa workshop, Lyon, Dec. 4

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[Glottolog-1] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mel". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[2] Fields, Edda L. Before "Baga": Settlement Chronologies of the Coastal Rio Nunez Region, Earliest Times to c.1000 CE. In: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2004), pp. 229-253. Boston University African Studies Center.

[Fields08-3] Fields-Black, Edda L. 2008. Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. (Blacks in the Diaspora.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press.