The Kimbundu languages are a group of
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...
coded Zone H.20 in Guthrie's classification. According to Nurse & Philippson (2003),
they probably form a valid node, though this is still uncertain. They are:
:
Kimbundu
Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola.
Its speakers are concentrated in the n ...
(Mbundu),
Sama,
Bolo,
Mpinda.
Songo is often assumed to be a dialect of Kimbundu, but actually appears to be one of the
Teke languages.
Ngoya to its south was until recently considered a dialect of Kimbundu, but has now been recognized as a language in own right, and may be transitional between Kimbundu and Umbundu.
[Angenot et al. (2013]
"Comparison between the Ipala-Ngoya, Kimbundu and Umbundu tone-class systems"
''Revista Língua Viva'' vol. 3, no. 1.
References
{{Bantu-lang-stub