Bongo (Bungu), also known as ''Dor'', is a

Central Sudanic language 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, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...

spoken by the Bongo people in sparsely populated areas of Bahr al Ghazal in South Sudan. A 2013 survey reported that ethnic Bongo reside in Bussere Boma, Bagari Payam,

Wau County Wau County is a county in the former state of Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan. Wau County was home to the state's capital, Wau. It is the most populous county in the state with over 232,910 people. The seat of Wau County is the third most ...

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...

Tone

Bongo is

tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...

that has the high (á), mid (ā), low (à) and falling (â) tones. All falling tones occur on either long vowels or on vowel clusters or glides. When the tonal fall is not due to a preceding high tone, it can be indicated by a high tine followed by a low tone

Numerals

Bongo has a

quinary Quinary (base-5 or pental) is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five digits on either hand. In the quinary place system, five numerals, from 0 to 4, are used to represent an ...

vigesimal vigesimal () or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). '' Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' vicesimus'', meaning 'twentieth'. Places In ...

numeral system.

Scholarship

The first ethnologists to work with the Bongo language were

John Petherick John Petherick (1813 – 15 July 1882), was a Welsh traveller, trader and consul in East Central Africa. Life He was born in Glamorganshire, and adopted the profession of mining engineer. In 1845 he entered the service of Mehemet Ali, and was em ...

, who published Bongo word lists in his 1861 work, ''Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa'';

Theodor von Heuglin Martin Theodor von Heuglin (20 March 1824, Hirschlanden, Württemberg5 November 1876), was a German explorer and ornithologist. Biography Heuglin was born in Hirschlanden (now part of Ditzingen) in Württemberg. His father was a Protestant past ...

, who also published Bongo word lists in ''Reise in das Gebiet des Weissen Nil, &c. 1862-1864'' in 1869; and

Georg August Schweinfurth Georg August Schweinfurth (29 December 1836 – 19 September 1925) was a Baltic German botanist and ethnologist who explored East Central Africa. Life and explorations He was born at Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. He was edu ...

, who contributed sentences and vocabularies in his ''Linguistische Ergebnisse, Einer Reise Nach Centralafrika'' in 1873.

E. E. Evans-Pritchard Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University ...

published additional Bongo word lists in 1937. More recent scholarship has been done by Eileen Kilpatrick, who published a phonology of Bongo in 1985.''Bongo Phonology.'' Eileen Kilpatrick. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 4 (1985): 1-62.

References

External links

Bongo at GurtongThe Jesus Film in BongoBongo at WALS Online
{{Authority control Bongo–Bagirmi languages Languages of South Sudan

Tone

Numerals

Scholarship

References

Further reading

External links