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
Southwest 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 the non-Western
Momo languages belong in Grassfields and that they 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 Ambele 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 in Grassfields. Blench (2010b) adds
Momo as a Narrow Grassfields subgroup. •
Grassfields • Narrow Grassfields •
Ring (Ring Road) •
Eastern Grassfields (Mbam–Nkam) •
Momo • ?
Ndemli •
Southwest Grassfields (previously Western Momo) • ?
Ambele • ?
Menchum (Befang) • ?
Western Beboid Viti (Vötö) is unclassified Narrow Grassfields. The Eastern Grassfields languages share nasal
noun-class prefixes with the
Bantu languages, which are not found in the other branches of Grassfields. However, they appear to be more closely related to the rest of Grassfields than they are to Bantu. ==Names and locations (Nigeria)==