The Bangi language, or ''Bobangi'', is a relative and main lexical source of
Lingala
Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser de ...
spoken in central
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
. Dialects of the language are spoken on both sides of the
Ubangi and the
Congo rivers.
Phonology
Consonants
* /ɓ/ may also be pronounced as
* Sounds /z, ⁿs/ can have allophones of
z, ⁿtsin free variation.
Vowels
Use in trade
As the Bobangi people came to dominate the slave trade along the upper
Congo River
The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
in the late 18th century, the Bangi language was used to facilitate trade between different ethnic groups in the region. Linguist John Whitehead claimed that the Moye,
Likuba, Bonga,
Mpama, Lusakani, and peoples all used Bangi for intercommunication in the 1890s. At the height of indigenous trade along the upper river, the Bobangi dominated the 500 kilometer section of the Congo between the
Kwah River and the equator, which most river trade passed through.
Other ethnic groups in this area were either assimilated into the Bobangi ethnic alliance, adopting the Bangi language, or were driven off.
However, the Bobangi dominance over trade was ended by Europeans in the late 19th century when colonial powers pushed local indigenous groups out of the profitable trade. By the late twentieth century, there were very few Bobangi people remaining in the area they had controlled a century earlier, and the Bangi language is no longer widespread.
Sources and references
Linguistic map
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bangi Language
Bangi-Ntomba languages
Languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo