Bangi language
| Bangi | |
|---|---|
| Bobangi | |
| Native to | Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Native speakers | 120,000 (2000)[1] |
?
| |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:bni – Bangimow – Moi |
| Glottolog | bang1354 Bobangimoic1236 Moi |
C.32[2] | |
The Bangi language, or Bobangi, is a relative and main lexical source of Lingala spoken in central Africa. Dialects of the language are spoken on both sides of the Ubangi River and Congo River.
Use in trade
As the Bobangi people came to dominate the slave trade along the upper
Kwah River and the equator, which most river trade passed through.[6] Other ethnic groups in this area were either assimilated into the Bobangi ethnic alliance, adopting the Bangi language, or were driven off.[7] However, the Bobangi dominance over trade was ended by Europeans in the late 19th century when colonial powers pushed local indigenous groups out of profitable trade. By the late twentieth century, there were very few Bobangi people remaining in the area they had controlled a century earlier, and the Bangi language is no longer widespread.[6]
Sources and references
References
- ^ Bangi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Moi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
- ^ Meeuwis, Michael (24 January 2023). "Linguistic gentrification: The Baptist Missionary Society and Bobangi (1882-1940)". Afrikanistik-Aegyptologie-Online. 2023 (5659): 1–26.
- ISBN 0300026161.
- ^ Meeuwis, Michael (2019). "The linguistic features of Bangala before Lingala: The pidginization of Bobangi in the 1880s and 1890s". Afrikanistik-Aegyptologie-Online. 2019 (5012): 1–43.
- ^ a b Harms. River of Wealth, River of Sorrow. p. 7.
- ^ Harms. River of Wealth, River of Sorrow. pp. 129–130.