| Sango | |
|---|---|
| Sangho, Sangoic | |
| yângâ tî sängö | |
| Pronunciation | [jáŋɡá tí sāŋɡō] |
| Native to | Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Region | |
Native speakers | sag: 620,000 (2017)[1] snj: 35,000 (1996) |
| Latin script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Central African Republic |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | sg |
| ISO 639-2 | sag |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:sag – Sangosnj – Riverain Sango |
| Glottolog | sang1327 |
| Linguasphere | 93-ABB-aa |
 Countries where Sango holds official status or recognized language:[3]
Central African Republic; (official)
Democratic Republic of the Congo;(recognized)
Chad; (recognized) | |
Sango (also spelled Sangho) is the primary language spoken in the Central Africa especially the Central African Republic, southern-Chad and Democratic Republic of the Congo. This language is co-official language in Central African Republic[4] It is used as a lingua franca across the country and had 450,000 native speakers in 1988. It also has 1.6 million second language speakers.
Sango is a language with contested classification, with some linguists considering it a Ngbandi-based creole, while others argue that the changes in Sango structures can be explained without a creolization process. It has many French loanwords, but its structure remains wholly Ngbandi. Sango was used as a lingua franca for trade along the Ubangi River before French colonisation in the late 1800s and has since expanded as an interethnic communication language. In colloquial speech, almost all of the language's vocabulary is Ngbandi based, whereas in more technical speech French loanwords constitute the majority.
Today, Sango is both a national and official language of the Central African Republic, spoken by 350,000 speakers as of the 1970 census. It is also spoken as a lingua franca in southern Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sango has three distinct sociolinguistic norms: an urban "radio" variety, a "pastor" variety, and a "functionary" variety spoken by learned people who make the highest use of French loanwords.
Sango is a tonal language with subject-verb-object word order, and its orthography was officially established in 1984. It has limited written material, mainly focused on religious literature. Sango is considered easy to learn, although reaching true fluency takes time, as with any other language. The main difficulties for English speakers are pronunciation and tone management.
- ^ Sango at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Riverain Sango at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Samarin, William J. (2000). "The Status of Sango in Fact and Fiction: On the One-Hundredth Anniversary of its Conception". In McWhorter, John H. (ed.). Language Change and Language Contact in Pidgins and Creoles. Creole language library. Vol. 21. John Benjamins. pp. 301–34. ISBN 9789027252432.
- ^ Samarin, William J. (2000). "The Status of Sango in Fact and Fiction: On the One-Hundredth Anniversary of its Conception". In McWhorter, John H. (ed.). Language Change and Language Contact in Pidgins and Creoles. Creole language library. Vol. 21. John Benjamins. pp. 301–34. ISBN 9789027252432.
- ^ Samarin, William J. (2000). "The Status of Sango in Fact and Fiction: On the One-Hundredth Anniversary of its Conception". In McWhorter, John H. (ed.). Language Change and Language Contact in Pidgins and Creoles. Creole language library. Vol. 21. John Benjamins. pp. 301–34. ISBN 9789027252432.
