Gogo is a
Bantu language spoken by the
Gogo people
The Gogo/Gongwe (singular: mgogo, plural: Wagogo) are a Bantu ethnic and linguistic group based in the Dodoma Region of central Tanzania. In 1992 the Gogo population was estimated to number 1,300,00The Gogo have historically been predominantly p ...
of
Dodoma Region
Dodoma Region (''Mkoa wa Dodoma'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital is the city of Dodoma. The region is located in central Tanzania, it is bordered by Singida Region to the west; Manyara Region ...
in
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 ...
. The language is spoken throughout Dodoma Region and into the neighbouring district of
Manyoni
Manyoni is a town in central Tanzania. It is the district headquarter of Manyoni District.
Transport
Paved trunk road T3 from Morogoro to the Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country ...
.
The language is considered to have three
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
s: Nyambwa (Cinyambwa or West Gogo), spoken to the west of Dodoma and in Manyoni, Nyaugogo (Cinyaugogo or Central Gogo), spoken in the environs of Dodoma and Tumba (Citumba or East Gogo), spoken to the east. The Gogo group is grouped with
Kagulu, which has a 56%
lexical similarity
In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...
with Gogo proper. Gogo has about 50% lexical similarity with
Hehe and
Sangu (both
Bena–Kinga languages (G.60), 48% with
Kimbu and 45% with
Nilamba. These last two are both in Guthrie's
Zone F.
Gogo is spoken by both
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
and
Muslims and is a major language of the
Anglican Church of Tanzania
The Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) is a province of the Anglican Communion based in Dodoma. It consists of 28 dioceses (27 on the Tanzanian mainland, and 1 on Zanzibar) headed by their respective bishops. It seceded from the Province of East A ...
.
Phonology
Consonants
* /k, ɡ/ are heard as palatal consonant sounds when preceding /i, e/;
, ɟ
* /z/ can also be heard as an affricate
z
* Nasal consonants when preceding voiceless stops are devoiced;
̥ n̥ ɳ̊ ŋ̊
* Voiceless consonants are mostly aspirated occurring after nasals;
ʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ
Vowels
External links
PanAfrican L10n page on Gogo
References
* Rugemalira, Josephat M. (2009). ''Cigogo, Kamusi ya Kigogo-Kiswahili-Kiingereza / Kiingereza-Kigogo, na Kiswahili-Kigogo / Gogo-Swahili-English, English-Gogo, and Swahili-Gogo Dictionary''. .
*Nurse, Derek and S. M. Mazengo. 1979. Gogo. African languages/Langues africaines 5. 70–76, 101–104.
Languages of Tanzania
Northeast Coast Bantu languages
{{Bantu-lang-stub