ABSTRACT
Prehistorians of Africa who use linguistics for the interpretation of archaeological data are dependent on the work of Greenberg (1966). However, recent research on the principal language phyla of Africa has modified his conclusions, in some cases quite dramatically. The most striking examples of this may be the discovery of isolated languages in east Africa and the internal reclassification of Niger-Congo. Many of these results have yet to be disseminated outside specialized publications and no overall synthesis is available, although a comprehensive summary of Niger-Congo has recently been published (Bendor-Samuel & Hartell 1989).
