The Ngasa or Ngas also known as Ongamo are an ethnic and linguistic group based on the northeastern slopes of
Mount Kilimanjaro
Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: above sea level and ab ...
in
Rombo District
Rombo is one of the seven districts of the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. The district covers an area of . It is bordered to the north and east by Kenya, to the west by the Siha District and Hai District, and to the south by the Moshi Rural Di ...
,
Kilimanjaro Region,
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
. In 2000 the
Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-sp ...
ethnic Ngasa population was estimated to number 4,285, with only 200 to 300 members continuing to speak the
Ngasa language
Ongamo, or Ngas, is a probably extinct Eastern Nilotic language of Tanzania. It is closely related to the Maa languages, but more distantly than they are to each other. Ongamo has 60% of lexical similarity with Maasai, Samburu, and Camus. Speaker ...
br>
Speakers have shifted to
Chaga languages, Chagga, a dominant regional
Bantu language
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.
The t ...
.
Ethnic groups in Tanzania
Indigenous peoples of East Africa
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