The Ngbandi language is a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
of the
Ubangian family spoken by a half-million or so people in 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 ...
(Ngbandi proper) and in the
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...
(Yakoma and others). It is primarily spoken by the
Ngbandi people
The Ngbandi are an ethnic group from the region of the upper Ubangi River; they inhabit the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and southern Central African Republic. They traditionally speak the Ngbandi language, which is part of the ...
, which included the dictator of what was then known as
Zaire
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-la ...
,
Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga ( ; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer ...
.
Varieties
Northern Ngbandi is the lexical source of the
trade language
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a language systematically used to make communication possib ...
Sango, which has as many native speakers as Ngbandi and which is used as a second language by millions more in the CAR.
A variety of Ngbandi may have been spoken further east, in the DRC villages of Kazibati and Mongoba near Uganda, until the late 20th century, but this is uncertain.
Yakoma, with a central position on the
Ubangi River
The Ubangi River (; ; ; ), also spelled Oubangui, is a river in Central Africa, and the largest right-bank tributary of the Congo River. It begins at the confluence of the Mbomou River, Mbomou (mean annual discharge 1,350 m3/s) and Uele Rivers (mea ...
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.
Gbayi or Kpatiri is a divergent Ngbandic language. Gbayi had likely been adopted by people who had formerly spoken a
Zande language
Zande is the largest of the Zande languages. It is spoken by the Azande, primarily in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and western South Sudan, but also in the eastern part of the Central African Republic. It is called Pazand ...
.
Nzakara, a Zande language, is spoken near Gbayi. Perhaps not coincidentally, Kpatili also happens to be the name of a
spurious
Spurious may refer to:
* Spurious relationship in statistics
* Spurious emission or spurious tone in radio engineering
* Spurious key in cryptography
* Spurious interrupt in computing
* Spurious wakeup in computing
* ''Spurious'', a 2011 no ...
Zande language for which there is no linguistic data.
Phonology
The phonology consists of the following:
Consonants
* Sounds /l/ and /r/ alternate with each other.
Vowels
Writing system
References
{{Niger-Congo branches
Ubangian languages
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Languages of the Central African Republic