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Wikipedia / Kwangali language

Kwangali, or RuKwangali, is a Bantu language spoken by 85,000 people along the Kavango River in Namibia, where it is a national language, and in Angola. It is one of several Bantu languages of the Kavango which have click consonants; these are the dental clicks c and gc, along with prenasalization and aspiration.

Maho (2009) includes Mbunza as a dialect, but excludes Sambyu, which he includes in Manyo.

Phonology

Consonants

A dental click type may also be heard, being adopted from the neighboring Khoisan languages. The clicks may also tend to be heard as alveolar .

Vowels

Short vowels of /i e o u/ may also be pronounced as [ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ].

References

  • Dammann, Ernst (1957). Studien zum Kwangali: Grammatik, Texte, Glossar. Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter

  • Derek Nurse & Gérard Philippson, The Bantu languages, 2003:569.

Books