Banda languages
Encyclopedia
Banda is a family of Ubangian languages
Ubangian languages
The Ubangian languages form a fairly close-knit language family of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango....

 spoken by the Banda people
Banda people
Banda is an ethnic group of the Central African Republic, some of who also live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, and South Sudan....

 of Central Africa
Central Africa
Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....

.

Languages

Olson (1996) classfies the Banda family as follows (Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...

16 employs this classification):
  • Central
    • Central Banda
      Central Banda language
      Central Banda is a dialect continuum of the Banda languages spoken by around one million people, primarily in the Central African Republic. The varieties may be mutually intelligible, especially the Mid-Southern–Gobu–Kpagua–Mono–Ngundu cluster. The other varieties are Bambari, Banda-Banda, Mbrès,...

       (a dialect cluster, incl. Mono
      Mono language (Congo)
      Mono is a language spoken by about 65,000 people in the northwestern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is one of the Banda languages, a subbranch of the Ubangian branch of the Niger–Congo languages...

      )
    • Yangere
      Yangere language
      Yangere is a Ubangian language of the Central African Republic. It is closely related to Central Banda....

  • South Banda
    South Banda language
    South Banda is a dialect continuum of the Banda languages spoken by around 200,000 or so people, primarily in the Central African Republic but with ten thousand or so in the DRC . The two varieties may be mutually intelligible....

     (SC)
  • Mbandja
    Mbandja language
    Mbandja is the largest of the Banda languages. There are 350,000 speakers in DRC, 10,000 in the Republic of Congo, and an unknown number in CAR....

     (S)
  • Ngbundu (SW)
  • West Banda
    West Banda language
    West Banda is a minor Banda language, spoken by 10,000 or so people....

    (WC)

External links

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