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The Kwa languages are spoken in the south-eastern part of Côte d'Ivoire, in Ghana, Togo and Benin, and the southwestern corner of Nigeria. The term was introduced 1885 by Krause and used by Westermann (1952) and Greenberg (1963). It is derived from the word for 'people' in many of these languages, which contains the root kwa. The Kwa group of languages is a branch of Volta-Congo and ultimately Niger-Congo.

Bennett & Sterk (1977) argued that Kwa in its original form was not a genetic unit, and proposed a reclassification in which the Yoruboid and Igboid languages are members of the Benue-Congo subfamily. The remaining languages are sometimes labeled New Kwa in order to avoid confusion with the old, larger Kwa family.

Based on historical-comparative analysis, Stewart ^[1] distinguished the following major branches of (New) Kwa:

• Potou-Tano (including e.g. Guang and Akan)
• Ga-Dangme
• Na-Togo
• Ka-Togo
• Gbe

Several languages of southern Côte d'Ivoire, such as Attie, Adioukrou, Abidji, and Ega are considered Kwa languages, but their exact position within the family is still unclear so they are conservatively left ungrouped.^[2]

Ethnologue divides the Kwa languages into two broad geographical groupings: Nyo and Left bank. The Nyo group collapses Stewart's Potou-Tano and Ga-Dangme branches and also includes the ungrouped languages of southern Côte d'Ivoire, while the remaining Kwa languages are called Left bank because they are spoken on the Eastern side of the Volta River in Ghana, Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria.

• Kru languages
• Gur languages

1. ^ 1989, slightly revised in Blench & Williamson 2000:29
2. ^ Williamson & Blench 2000:29

• Bennett, Patrick R. & Sterk, Jan P. (1977) 'South Central Niger-Congo: A reclassification'. Studies in African Linguistics, 8, 241–273.
• Hintze, Ursula (1959) Bibliographie der Kwa-Sprachen und der Sprachen der Togo-Restvölker (mit 11 zweifarbigen Sprachenkarten). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
• Stewart, John M. (1989) 'Kwa'. In: Bendor-Samuel & Hartell (eds.) The Niger-Congo languages. Lanham, MD: The University Press of America.
• Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (1952) Languages of West Africa (Handbook of African Languages Part II). London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press.
• Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger-Congo', in Heine, Bernd and Nurse, Derek (eds) African Languages - An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 11—42.