Kako (also Mkako or Mkaka) is a

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 ...

spoken mainly in

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; the C ...

, with some speakers in the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

and the

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

. The main population centres of Kako speakers are

Batouri Batouri is a town and commune in the East Province of Cameroon. It is the second largest municipality in the province after the provincial capital Bertoua. It is located on the main (though unpaved) road connecting Bertoua to the Central Africa ...

and Ndélélé in the East Region of Cameroon. Once grouped with the Gbaya dialect cluster and often still referred to as part of an undefined "Gbaya-Kaka" group, Kako is now grouped in the

Bantu language family 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 ...

Dialects

Kako can be divided in three main closely related dialects stretching from eastern dialect (Bεra, Bèra) near the Cameroon-Central African Republic border area to a middle dialect (Mgbwako, Mgbako) in near the Batouri area to a western dialect (Mbo-Ndjo'o, Mbo-Ndjokou) near the Bertoua-Doumé area. The difference is the greatest between the eastern Bεra dialect and the western Mbondjóo, with the Mgbwako dialect forming a middle ground. All three remain

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

. The Bεra and Mbondjóo dialects have 85.5% of their words in common, of which 26.4% are identical and 59.1% are cognates. Other known variants of Kako language are Bo-Rong, Lossou, Ngwendjè and Mbéssembo. Seki language in

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

and

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...

sounds very similar to Kako language.

ALCAM (2012)

According to ALCAM (2012), each clan (in Kako ''mbó'', equivalent to Beti ''mvog'') has its own linguistic variety: *Kakó Mbódo *Kakó Mbóbutu *Kakó Mbónjó *Kakó Mbóngándi *Kakó Mbóróng *Kakó Ngónje *Kakó Ngwájá *Kako Ngbako *Kakó Bera *Kako Mbesámbó The Kakó Mbesámbó and Kakó Bera found in the arrondissement of

Lomié Lomié is a town in the Lomié District in the Upper Nyong division of the East Province of Cameroon. An article in the ''Mail & Guardian Online'' describes it as having "no telephone connection to the outside world, and a single access road that ...

and in

Ngoïla Ngoila, also spelled Ngoyla and Ngoida, is a village in the East Province of Cameroon, located at 2.617° N, 14.017° E. The primary ethnic group is the Njem. Ngoila is the capital of the Ngoila subdivision of the Haut-Nyong division. See also ...

(

Haut-Nyong Haut-Nyong is a department of East Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 36,384 km and as of 2001 had a total population of 216,768. The capital of the department lies at Abong-Mbang. Subdivisions The department is divide ...

department, Eastern Region) came there at during the French colonial era to extract rubber. They are originally from Ndélélé commune of

Kadey Kadey (also spelled Kadéï, Kadéi, Kadeï or Kadei) is a department of East Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 15,884 km and as of 2001 had a total population of 192,927. The capital of the department lies at Batouri. Su ...

department, Eastern Region. Their language has not changed much since then. Without having left

south of

, however, the Kakó Bóli, Loso, Mbópaló, and Gbe have abandoned the Kakó language and now speak Dóóka, a Gbaya language. Kakó covers most of

Department (Eastern Region), notably most of

and Ndélélé communes and the north of Mbang (Doumé valley), while the south has Mpo speakers and Ketté commune has Gbaya speakers, who are also found in the east of

and the south of Ndélélé. Kakó is also found in the

and the

Republic of Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

. The total population speaking this language is estimated at 70,500 speakers.

History

Linguistic and documentary evidence support

oral traditions Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...

claiming that the people speaking Kako, and thus the language, have migrated to their present positions from further east. Current evidence can trace the language back to the area just east of the current Cameroon-Central African Republic border, around the towns of Berberati and Gaza in the mid 19th century. Further extrapolation into history is speculative, though being a Bantu language it is likely to have followed the

Bantu migrations The Bantu expansion is a hypothesis about the history of the major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu-speaking group, which spread from an original nucleus around Central Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa. In the process, ...

out of their ancestral homeland in the southern Cameroon-Nigeria borderlands. For their known history, the Kako language has been in close contact with various dialects of the Gbaya language. This has resulted in numerous borrowings of words. In fact, the Bεra dialect of Kako and the Yaáyuwee dialect of Kako share nearly 1% of their words, with a further 10-15% being cognates. Small group has migrated during last century in Gabon from Cameroon and has settled mainly around Batouri-Mbitam.

Writing System

Kako is written with two standardized alphabets following the general alphabet of Cameroonian languages, one for East Kako{ and the other for west Kako. {, class="wikitable" , + East Kako Alphabet , a , , b , , ɓ , , c , , d , ɗ , , e , , ɛ , , f , , g , h , , i , , j , , k , , l , m , , n , , ŋ , , o , , ɔ , p , , r , , s , , t , , u , v , , w , , y {, class="wikitable" , + West Kako Alphabet , a , , b , , ɓ , , c , , d , ɗ , , e , , ɛ , , f , , g , h , , i , , j , , k , , l , m , , n , , ŋ , , o , , ɔ , p , , r , , s , , t , , u , v , , w , , y , , z Nasalized vowels are indicated using the cedilla: for East Kako and for West Kako. Tones are usually not indicated, lexical tone never is, but grammatical tone can be indicated with accents when there is ambiguity.

References

{{Narrow Bantu languages, A-B Languages of Cameroon Pomo–Bomwali languages