Bangala | |
---|---|
Ngala | |
Native to | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo |
Region | Haut-Uele District |
Speakers | (undated figure of "few")[1] L2: 3.5 million (1991)[2] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | bxg |
Glottolog | bang1353 |
C30A [3] |
Bangala or Mɔnɔkɔ na bangála is a Bantu language spoken in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is also spoken in parts of South Sudan and some speakers are still found in the extreme western part of Uganda (e.g., Arua, Koboko). A sister language of Lingala, it is used as a lingua franca by people with different languages and rarely as a first language. In 1991 there were an estimated 3.5 million second-language speakers.[2] It is spoken to the east and northeast of the area where Lingala is spoken. In Lingala, Bangala translates to "People of Mongala". This means people living along the Mongala River. Across Bas-Uele Province, Bangala speakers have to a great extent adopted Lingala.