Pongo is a dialect of the

Duala language Duala (''ɓwambo ba duālā in douala)'' (also spelt Douala, Diwala, Dwela, Dualla and Dwala) is a dialect cluster spoken by the Duala and Mungo peoples of Cameroon. Douala belongs to the Bantu language family, in a subgroup called Sawabantu. ...

, spoken on the coast of

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west- central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; th ...

, in the district of Dibombari, by the Pongo tribe. It belongs to the

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. T ...

, Code A26 according to Guthrie classification.

Description

The Pongo language is, according to dialectometrics data, closest to the

Douala Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region. Home to Central Africa's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport (DLA), it is the comm ...

standard, with which it seems to share nearly 95% of its basic vocabulary. Both languages are mutually intelligible despite some difficulties on the Douala side due to limited exposure to the Pongo dialect. The Douala dialect is used as a '' lingua franca'' in the Littoral region between members of the Sawabantu ethnic group. The standard Douala has been used to evangelize in the region and is the preferred language of the

Makossa Makossa is a Cameroonian style of urban music. Like much other late 20th century music of Sub-Saharan Africa, it uses strong electric bass rhythms and prominent brass. In the 1980s makossa had a wave of mainstream success across Africa and to a ...

musical genre.

Geography

The town of Dibombari is the centre of Pongo. This area is located north of the city of

, above the Bonabéri district. The term "Pongo" is also used to designate the north cardinal point in Douala. There, the Pongo tribe coexists with other ethnic groups such as the Bankon and the Mpoo. Duala ethnic groups

Grammar

Pongo differs from Duala in the use of the verb ''èndè'' instead of the verb ''wala ''(to go), unusual in Douala, which serves as an

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...

in the

future tense In grammar, a future tense ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meanin ...

in both languages. Another noticeable difference is the use of the conjunction ''ndi'' ("but") instead of ''ndé'' and a tendency to favor the

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

''/ d /'' over / l /. For example: Ekwali, written Ekwadi ("History") in Douala, becomes systematically Ekwadi in Pongo. In addition, the Douala prefix ''ma'', usually placed before the basic form of the verb, is replaced by an'' n', ''in Pongo. An example is the Douala sentence "di ma topo, ndé ba bato si ma senga", which becomes in Pongo "''di n'topo Di , ndi ba bato n'senga"'' "we talk, but people do not listen."

Vocabulary

Comparative glossary of Douala and Pongo dialects. Boxes with two words indicate that these words are both present in the dialect and that they are interchangeable.

References

{{Languages of Cameroon Languages of Cameroon Sawabantu languages Subject–verb–object languages Tonal languages Bantu languages