North Volta

North Volta groups together several Niger-Congo branches spread across the savanna between the upper Volta and Ubangi rivers. The largest is Gur, once called Voltaic after the Volta River, whose leading language is Mòoré, spoken by the Mossi; their kingdoms, chief among them Ouagadougou, took shape from the 1200s and dominated present-day Burkina Faso.

To the west lie the Senufo languages of the Mali-Ivory Coast borderlands, much influenced by neighbouring Mande, while the Kru languages run along the Liberian and Ivorian coast, their membership of Niger-Congo disputed. Eastward the Adamawa languages cover the Adamawa plateau, Bua reaches southern Chad, and the Ubangian family is centred on the Central African Republic, where Sango served the river trade.

Nearly all these tongues remained unwritten vernaculars. Commerce and Islamic learning were carried in Mande languages such as Jula or in Arabic.