Bila, or Forest Bira, is a
Bantu language
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 ...
spoken in the
Mambasa Territory of the
Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
. It is also spoken by the
Mbuti
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
Subgroups
Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest ...
Pygmies
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...
who live in that area. Pygmy groups to the west include the
Kango and Sua (Batchua).
[''L'Apare est un ruisseau, affluent de l'Ituri en région des Bantous Babali. La route qui relie Bafwasende à Bomili traverse le village, où réside ce groupe de Pygmées devenus sédentaires. Dans la documentation de l'expédition de 1929 et de 1935, ils étaient désignés sous le nom de Basua ]age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone has been alive or something has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older
...
Babali aux Bango ''wa mugwase'' (ou Pygmées de forêt). Après l'expédition de 1949–50, l'auteur préfère substituer à ces deux appellations, données par les Babali, leurs propres noms : les Pygmées de forêt désignent ceux de village du nom de Balioli (=Belueli) (sing. Dioy) et vice-versa ceux-ci désignent les Pygmées de forêt du nom de Bango (sing. Mwango).'' Other Mbuti speak
Central Sudanic languages
Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), N ...
. The Kango and Sua speak distinct dialects (southern and northern), but not enough to impair
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...
with their farming Bila patrons.
Maho (2009) lists Ibutu (Mbuttu, D.313) as a distinct language.
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
References
*Serge BAHUCHET, 2006. "Languages of the African Rainforest « Pygmy » Hunter-Gatherers: Language Shifts without Cultural Admixture
In ''Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherers populations in global perspective''. Leipzig.
*Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 2003. Bila (D32). In Nurse, Derek and Philippson, Gérard (eds.), The Bantu languages, 450-474. London & New York: Routledge.
Biran languages
African Pygmies
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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