Ngbandi language
Ngbandi | |
---|---|
Ngbandi–Mongoba–Kazibati | |
Native to | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Region | Équateur Province |
Ethnicity | Ngbandi, Yakoma |
Native speakers | Northern Ngbandi: 250,000 (2000)[1] Southern Ngbandi: 110,000 |
Niger–Congo?
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:ngb – Northern Ngbandinbw – Southern Ngbandiyky – Yakomadeq – Dendimgn – Mbangigyg – Gbayi |
Glottolog | ngba1290 |
ELP | Gbayi |
The Ngbandi language is a
Varieties
Northern Ngbandi is the lexical source of the
A variety of Ngbandi may have been spoken further east, in the DRC villages of Kazibati and Mongoba[2][3] 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.
Phonology
The phonology consists of the following:[5]
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.[6]
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a |
Writing system
a | b | d | e | ɛ | f | g | h | i | k | kp | l | m | n | ny | o | ɔ | p | s | t | u | v | w | y | z |
References
- ^ Northern Ngbandi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Southern Ngbandi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Yakoma at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Dendi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Mbangi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Gbayi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) - ^ Linguasphere code 93-ABB-ae/af
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mongoba-Kazibati". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- S2CID 133888593.
- JSTOR 25836516.
- ^ Boyd, Raymond (1988). "Le kpatiri ou gbayi, une nouvelle langue du groupe ngbandi". Lexique comparatif des langues oubanguiennes. Geuthner. pp. 35–49.