Bangala language
Encyclopedia
Bangala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken in the northeast part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, in South Sudan
, and the extreme western part of Uganda
. A divergent form of Lingala
, it's used as a lingua franca by people with different languages and rarely as a first language. The estimated number of speakers varies between 2 and 3.5 million. It is spoken to the east and northeast of the area where Lingala is spoken.
(a language that is a mix of two or more languages) and was classified as a separate language - Bangala. The vocabulary of Bangala varies depending on the first language of the speakers.
Around the 1980s, with the popularity and increased availability of Lingala in modern music, young people in large villages and towns began adopting Lingala so much that their Bangala is becoming more of a dialect than a separate language.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
, in South Sudan
South Sudan
South Sudan , officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country located in the Sahel region of northeastern Africa. It is also part of the North Africa UN sub-region. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city; the capital city is planned to be moved to the more...
, and the extreme western part of Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
. A divergent form of Lingala
Lingala language
Lingala, or Ngala, is a Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a large part of the Republic of the Congo , as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic. It has over 10 million speakers...
, it's used as a lingua franca by people with different languages and rarely as a first language. The estimated number of speakers varies between 2 and 3.5 million. It is spoken to the east and northeast of the area where Lingala is spoken.
History
As Lingala spread west and south, its vocabulary was replaced more and more by tribal and regional languages, and it became more of an interlanguageInterlanguage
An interlanguage is an emerging linguistic system that has been developed by a learner of a second language who has not become fully proficient yet but is approximating the target language: preserving some features of their first language , or overgeneralizing target language rules in speaking or...
(a language that is a mix of two or more languages) and was classified as a separate language - Bangala. The vocabulary of Bangala varies depending on the first language of the speakers.
Around the 1980s, with the popularity and increased availability of Lingala in modern music, young people in large villages and towns began adopting Lingala so much that their Bangala is becoming more of a dialect than a separate language.
External links
- Ethnologue report for Bangala
- Bangala Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
- List of common words in Bangala
- List of common words in Lingala
- Sample of Bangala text