Gbaya languages

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Kresh language.
Gbaya
Gbaya–Manza–Ngbaka
Geographic
distribution
Savannas
  • Gbaya
Proto-languageProto-Gbaya
ISO 639-2 / 5gba
Glottologgbay1279

The Gbaya languages, also known as Gbaya–Manza–Ngbaka, are a family of perhaps a dozen languages spoken mainly in the western

Ngbaka, a name shared with the Ngbaka languages of the Ubangian
family.

History

Moñino (1995:22) proposes that the Proto-Gbaya homeland was located in an area around Carnot, Central African Republic.[1]

Classification

The Gbaya languages are traditionally classified as part of the Ubangian family.

Moñino (2010), followed by Blench (2012), propose that they may instead be most closely related to the

Central Gur languages, or perhaps constitute an independent branch of Niger–Congo, but that they do not form a group with Ubangian.[2] Connections with Bantu are mostly limited to cultural vocabulary, and several Central Sudanic words suggest that the proto-Gbaya were hunter-gatherers who acquired agriculture from the Sara.[3]

Proto-Gbaya vocabulary shared with

language continuum native to a savanna environment.[4]

Languages

Moñino (2010)[3] reconstructed proto-Gbaya and proposes the following family tree:

Gbaya 
 Southern 

Bàngàndò

Ɓùlì, Ɓìyàndà

 Western 
 (Northern) 
 Eastern 

Mbódɔ̀mɔ̀

Ɓòfì

Ngbākā-Mānzā

Mānzā

Ngbàkà

Gbànù

Several of these varieties may be mutually intelligible, such as Ngbaka, Ngbaka Manza, and Manza.

There are one or two other small Gbaya languages scattered in Congo and along the Cameroon border, such as Bonjo.

See also

References

  1. Université de Paris V
    ).
  2. ^ Roger Blench, Niger-Congo: an alternative view
  3. ^ a b Moñino (2010), The position of Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka group among the Niger-Congo languages Archived 2014-01-08 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Kleinewillinghöfer, Ulrich (2018). The northern fringe of the Jos Plateau, a prehistorical contact zone of Benue-Plateau and Adamawa-Gur languages: The evidence of the cultural vocabulary. Kramer & Kießling (eds.) Current approaches to Adamawa and Fur languages, Cologne 20l8, 193-225.

External links

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