Phonology
Consonants
Allophones: [ɸ] and [β] are allophones of /p/ and /b/, respectively, before /a/ and /u/. The phoneme /l/ is phonetically a flap [ɾ], a voiced plosive [d] or its palatalized version [dʲ] when before the front high vowel /i/. In the same way, the alveolars /s/, /z/ and /n/ are palatalized to [ʃ], [ʒ] and [ɲ], respectively, before [i]. There may be an epenthesis of [g] after /ŋ/ in word medial positions, thus creating a phonetic cluster [ŋg] in a process of fortition. There is long distance nasal harmony, in which /l/ is realized as [n] 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 Tone sandhi, tonal sandhi.Vowel harmony
There is vowel harmony 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. 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").Conjugation
Conjugating the verb to be (''kuala''; also ''kukala'' in Kimbundu) in the present: Conjugating the verb to have (''kuala ni''; also ''kukala ni'' in Kimbundu) in the present :References
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