Aka | |
---|---|
Yaka | |
Native to | Central African Republic, Republic of Congo |
Ethnicity | Aka people |
Native speakers | (30,000 cited 1986–1996) [1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | axk |
Glottolog | yaka1272 |
C.104 [2] | |
ELP | Yaka |
Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries.
Aka is spoken by the Aka people, pygmies closely related to the Ubangian-speaking Baka of Cameroon, Congo and Gabon. Together, these peoples are known as the Mbenga (Bambenga) or Binga (Babinga), the latter derogatory.
Famously, Aka shares vocabulary with the Baka languages, mostly concerning a specialised forest economy, such as words for edible plants, medicinal plants and honey collecting. This is among the 30% of Aka which is not Bantu and the 30% of Baka which is not Ubangian and has been posited as the remnant of an ancestral Western Pygmy (Mbenga or "Baaka") language which has otherwise vanished. [3] However, it is entirely possible that the Aka shifted to Bantu from a Ubangian language related to Baka, in which case the situation reduces to a single ethnic group adapted to the forest with correspondingly specialised vocabulary. There is no evidence for a wider linguistic affiliation with any of the other Pygmy peoples. [4]
The Aka people call themselves Mraka in the singular and Beka in the plural. The people and their language go by various alternate spellings: Mò-Áka, Moyaka, Bayaka, Yaga, Bayaga, Gbayaka, Biaka, Beká, Yakwa, Yakpa, Yakpwa, Nyoyaka. The western Aka are known as the Benzele (Mbenzélé, Babenzélé, Bambenzele, Ba-Benjelle), and the eastern Aka as the Sese (Basese). These might be distinct dialects; Nzari might be another.
Mikaya-Luma | |
---|---|
Native to | Gabon |
Ethnicity | Mikaya, Baluma |
Niger–Congo?
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | None (mis ) |
Glottolog | mika1256 |
none [2] |
Pygmies of northern Gabon called the Mikaya and Luma are evidently either Aka or speak a language closely related to Aka.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio- velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | |||||
Plosive/ Affricate | plain | p | t | k | k͡p | ||
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ɡ͡b | ||
prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿd | ⁿd͡ʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑᵐɡ͡b | ||
implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||||
Fricative | plain | ɸ | s | h | |||
voiced | β | ||||||
Lateral | l | ||||||
Semivowel | j | w |
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Close-mid | e | o | |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
Open | a |
Some vocabulary with nearby Baka: [6]
Meaning | Baka | Aka |
---|---|---|
Dioscorea semperflorens | ʔèsùmà | èsùmà |
Fruits of Dioscorea | bèlèbo | èlèbó |
Yam borer stick | bòndùngà | ndòngà |
Male or old elephant | kàmbà | kàmbà |
Elephant tracks | ʔèpùndà | èpùndà |
Notched flute (for hunting ritual) | mòbìɔ | mòbìɔ́ |
Trigona beccari (a stingless bee) | pɛ̀ndɛ̀ | vɛ̀ndɛ̀ |
Queen bee | ɲábɔ̀mɛ̀ | èbɔ̀mɛ̀ |
Pollen | kinda | kíndá |
Honeyguide | kpangaadàndù | kpángbá |
Dialium pachyphyllum | mbaso | mbàsɔ̀ |
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages, and possibly several smaller groups of languages that are difficult to classify. If valid, Niger-Congo would be the world's largest in terms of member languages, the third-largest in terms of speakers, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area. It is generally considered to be the world's largest language family in terms of the number of distinct languages, just ahead of Austronesian, although this is complicated by the ambiguity about what constitutes a distinct language; the number of named Niger–Congo languages listed by Ethnologue is 1,540.
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm tall.
The Bantu expansion is a hypothesis about the history of the major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu-speaking group, which spread from an original nucleus around Central Africa. In the process, the Proto-Bantu-speaking settlers displaced, eliminated or absorbed pre-existing hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups that they encountered.
Pygmy music refers to the sub-Saharan African music traditions of the Central African foragers, predominantly in the Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon.
The Aka or Biaka are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people. They live in south-western Central African Republic and in northern Republic of the Congo. They are related to the Baka people of Cameroon, Gabon, northern Congo, and southwestern Central African Republic.
French is the official language in Gabon, however 32% of the people speak Fang as a mother tongue. French is the medium of instruction. Before World War II very few Gabonese learned French, nearly all of them working in either business or government administration. After the war, France worked for universal primary education in Gabon, and by the 1960-61 census, 47% of the Gabonese over the age of 14 spoke some French, while 13% were literate in the language. By the 1990s, the literacy rate had risen to about 60%.
The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka, are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic. They are sometimes called a subgroup of the Twa, but the two peoples are not closely related. Likewise, the name "Baka" is sometimes mistakenly applied to other peoples of the area who, like the Baka and Twa, have been historically called pygmies, a term that is now considered derogatory.
The Atlantic–Congo languages are the largest demonstrated family of languages in Africa. They have characteristic noun class systems and form the core of the Niger–Congo family hypothesis. They comprise all of Niger–Congo apart from Mande, Dogon, Ijoid, Siamou, Kru, the Katla and Rashad languages, and perhaps some or all of the Ubangian languages. Hans Günther Mukarovsky's "Western Nigritic" corresponded roughly to modern Atlantic–Congo.
The Gbaya languages, also known as Gbaya–Manza–Ngbaka, are a family of perhaps a dozen languages spoken mainly in the western Central African Republic and across the border in Cameroon, with one language (Ngbaka) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and several languages with few speakers in the Republic of the Congo. Many of the languages go by the ethnic name Gbaya, though the largest, with over a million speakers, is called Ngbaka, a name shared with the Ngbaka languages of the Ubangian family.
The Bongo people, also called Babongo or Bazimba, are an agricultural people of Gabon in equatorial Africa who are known as "forest people" due to their recent foraging economy.
Lese is a Central Sudanic language of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as a name for the people who speak this language. The Lese people, live in association with the Efé Pygmies and share their language, which is occasionally known as Lissi or Efe.
The Ubangian languages form a diverse linkage of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic and the DR Congo. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, including one of its official languages, Sango. They are also spoken in Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
The dozen Ngbaka languages are a family of Ubangian languages spoken in the Central African Republic and neighboring areas. It includes Pygmy languages such as Baka and Gundi. The most populous Ngbaka languages are Mbaka in the western branch, spoken by a quarter million people, and Mayogo in the eastern branch, spoken by half that number.
The Kwasio language, also known as Ngumba / Mvumbo, Bujeba, and Gyele / Kola, is a language of Cameroon, spoken in the south along the coast and at the border with Equatorial Guinea by some 70,000 members of the Ngumba, Kwasio, Gyele and Mabi peoples. Many authors view Kwasio and the Gyele/Kola language as distinct. In the Ethnologue, the languages therefore receive different codes: Kwasio has the ISO 639-3 code nmg, while Gyele has the code gyi. The Kwasio, Ngumba, and Mabi are village farmers; the Gyele are nomadic Pygmy hunter-gatherers living in the rain forest.
Baka is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close related to the Aka, collectively known as the Mbenga (Bambenga).However, the languages are not related, apart from some vocabulary dealing with the forest economy, which suggests the Aka may have shifted to Bantu, with an estimated 15000 people have shifted.
Bila, or Forest Bira, is a Bantu language spoken in the Mambasa Territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also spoken by the Mbuti Pygmies who live in that area. Pygmy groups to the west include the Kango and Sua (Batchua). Other Mbuti speak Central Sudanic languages. The Kango and Sua speak distinct dialects, but not enough to impair mutual intelligibility with their farming Bila patrons.
The Gyele, also known as the Kola (Bakola) or Koya (Bakoya), are the pygmies of southern Cameroon and adjacent areas of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. They live among Bantu patrons, the Mvumbo and Bassa. They speak a variety of or a language closely related to Mvumbo.
The Kango (Bakango), also known as the Batchua and Mbuti-Sua, are an Mbuti pygmy people of the Ituri forest. They speak a Bantu language, Bila, apparently in two dialects, northern Sua and southern Kango.
The term Congo Pygmies refers to "forest people" who have, or recently had, a hunter-gatherer economy and a simple, non-hierarchical societal structure based on bands, are of short stature, have a deep cultural and religious affinity with the Congo forest and live in a generally subservient relationship with agricultural "patrons", with which they trade forest products such as meat and honey for agricultural and iron products.
The African Pygmies are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, traditionally subsisting on a forager and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They are divided into three roughly geographic groups: