Savannas languages
The Savannas languages, also known as Gur–Adamawa or Adamawa–Gur, is a branch of the Niger–Congo languages that includes Greenberg's Gur and Adamawa–Ubangui families. History of classification The Gur–Adamawa link was demonstrated in Kleinewillinghöfer (1996) and has been accepted as established by later researchers, who have gone further in noting that the Adamawa and Gur languages themselves do not form coherent groups and are not necessarily more closely related internally than they are to each other. Bennett (1983) had also mentioned a North Central Niger-Congo branch consisting of Gurunsi, "Ubangian", and Trans-Benue groups, with the Trans-Benue group consisting of the Burak-Jen (i.e., Bikwin-Jen), Yungur (i.e., Bena-Mboi), and Tula-Longuda subgroups. There are several clusters of Adamawa languages; among the Gur languages, only the core of that proposal (Central Gur) has been retained, though it is possible that some of the 'peripheral' languages may turn out to be related to each other. Kleinewillinghöfer et al. (2012) note that a reconstruction of proto-Central Gur noun classes needs to include several Adamawa families. Senufo (ex-Gur) and Fali (ex-Adamawa) are excluded from Savannas, as they appear to be some of the more divergent branches of Niger–Congo. Dimmendaal (2008) excludes the Ubangian family from Niger–Congo altogether, stating