Ngbandi language

The Ngbandi language is a dialect continuum of the Ubangian family spoken by a half-million or so people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ngbandi proper) and in the Central African Republic (Yakoma and others). It is primarily spoken by the Ngbandi people, which included the dictator of what was then known as Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.

Ngbandi
Native toDemocratic Republic of the Congo
RegionÉquateur Province
EthnicityNgbandi, Yakoma
Native speakers
(Unknown. Ca. 100,000 Southern Ngbandi (half the total population cited in 1989);[1]
370,000 Northern Ngbandi and other cited 1996–2000)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
ngb – Northern Ngbandi
nbw – Southern Ngbandi
yky – Yakoma
deq – Dendi
mgn – Mbangi
gyg – Gbayi
Glottologngba1290
ELPGbayi

Varieties

Northern Ngbandi is the lexical source of the trade language Sango, which has as many native speakers as Ngbandi and which is used as a second language by millions more in the CAR.

A variety of Ngbandi may have been spoken further east, in the DRC villages of Kazibati and Mongoba[3][4] near Uganda, until the late 20th century, but this is uncertain.

Yakoma, with a central position on the Ubangi River that divides the CAR from the DRC, has a high degree of intelligibility with all other varieties of Ngbandi, though as with any dialect continuum, it does not follow that more distant varieties are necessarily as intelligible with each other as they are with Yakoma.

Gbayi or Kpatiri is a divergent Ngbandic language. Gbayi had likely been adopted by people who had formerly spoken a Zande language. Nzakara, a Zande language, is spoken near Gbayi. Perhaps not coincidentally, Kpatili also happens to be the name of a spurious Zande language for which there is no linguistic data.[5]

Phonology

The phonology consists of the following:[6]

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Labio-
velar		 Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ
Plosive voiceless p t k k͡p
voiced b d ɡ ɡ͡b
prenasal ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ ᵑᵐɡ͡b
Fricative voiceless f s h
voiced v z
prenasal ᶬv ⁿz
Rhotic (r)
Approximant l j w
  • Sounds /l/ and /r/ alternate with each other.[7]

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a

Writing system
Northern Ngbandi alphabet[8]
abdeɛ fghik kplmnny oɔpst uvwyz

References
  1. Ngbandi at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).;
    ca. 250,000 would be expected from the population of Northern Ngbandi cited in 2000 (see next)
  2. Northern Ngbandi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Southern Ngbandi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Yakoma at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Dendi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Mbangi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Gbayi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. Linguasphere code 93-ABB-ae/af
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mongoba-Kazibati". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. Güldemann, Tom (2018). "Historical linguistics and genealogical language classification in Africa". In Güldemann, Tom (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of Africa. The World of Linguistics series. Vol. 11. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 58–444. doi:10.1515/9783110421668-002. ISBN 978-3-11-042606-9.
  6. Kamanda, Kola (1989). La Conjugaison en Ngbandi (Langue non-Bantu). Annales Aequatoria.
  7. Boyd, Raymond (1988). Le kpatiri ou gbayi, une nouvelle langue du groupe ngbandi. Lexique comparatif des langues oubanguiennes: Geuthner.
  8. ScriptSource.org.
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