Kimbundu, a
Bantu language
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantÊŠÌ€) 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.
The t ...
which has sometimes been called Mbundu
or 'North Mbundu' (see
Umbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in
Angola.
Its speakers are concentrated in the north-west of the country, notably in the
Luanda,
Bengo,
Malanje and the
Cuanza Norte
The Cuanza Norte Province ( en, North Cuanza; umb, Konano Kwanza Volupale) is province of Angola. N'dalatando is the capital and the province has an area of 24,110 km² and a population of 443,386. Manuel Pedro Pacavira was born here and ...
provinces. It is spoken by the
Ambundu
The Ambundu or Mbundu ( Mbundu: or , singular: (distinct from the Ovimbundu) are a Bantu people living in Angola's North-West, North of the river Kwanza. The Ambundu speak Kimbundu, and most also speak the official language of the country ...
.
Phonology
Consonants
Allophones:
¸and
²are allophones of /p/ and /b/, respectively, before /a/ and /u/. The phoneme /l/ is phonetically a flap
¾ a voiced plosive
or its palatalized version
ʲwhen before the front high vowel /i/. In the same way, the alveolars /s/, /z/ and /n/ are palatalized to
ƒ ’and
² respectively, before
There may be an epenthesis of
after /Å‹/ in word medial positions, thus creating a phonetic cluster
‹gin a process of
fortition
Fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. becomes or becomes ). Al ...
.
There is long distance
nasal harmony
Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony.
Examples
In Athabaskan languages
One of the more common harmony processes is ''coronal harm ...
, in which /l/ is realized as
if the previous morphemes contain /m/ or /n/, but not prenasalized stops.
Vowels
There are two contrasting tones: a high (á) and a low tone (à ). There is also a downstep in cases of
tonal sandhi
Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes.
It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...
.
Vowel harmony
There is
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
in two groups (the high vowels /i, u/ and the mid and low vowels /e, o, a/) that applies only for verbal morphology. In some morphemes, vowels may be consistently deleted to avoid a hiatus.
Loans
European Portuguese
There is a small number of words of Kimbundu origin and many of those are indirect loans, borrowed via
Angolan Portuguese
Angolan Portuguese ( pt, Português de Angola) is a group of dialects and accents of the Portuguese language used mostly in Angola, where it is an official language. In 2005 it was used there by 60% of the population, including by 20% as their f ...
.
The examples generally understood by most or all speakers of Angolan and European Portuguese include
(, "very, a lot"),
(, "old person")
()
()
(, "money")
()
wi ("man, dude")
fixe ("cool"),
bué da fixe and muitá fixó ("excellent").
Mundo Cigano.
Conjugation
Conjugating the verb to be (''kuala''; also ''kukala'' in Kimbundu) in the present:
References
External links
The art of the language of Angola, author Father Pedro Dias, published in 1697
PanAfrican L10n page on Kimbundu
Ethnic groups of Angola
Kimbundu languages
Languages of Angola
{{Bantu-lang-stub