Kwangali language

Kwangali
Rukwangali
Native to	Namibia, Angola
Region	Okavango River
Native speakers	152,000 (2018)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Volta-Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu Kavango–Southwest Kavango Kwangali
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kwn
Glottolog	kwan1273
Guthrie code	K.33

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

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

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p		t	tʃ	k
	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b		d	dʒ	ɡ
	prenasal vl.	ᵐpʰ		ⁿtʰ		ᵑkʰ
	prenasal vd.	ᵐb		ⁿd	ⁿdʒ	ᵑɡ
Fricative	voiceless		f	s	ʃ		h
	voiced	β	v	z
	prenasal vl.		ᶬf	ⁿs
	prenasal vd.		ᶬv	ⁿz
Nasal		m		n	ɲ
Trill				r
Lateral				l
Approximant					j	w

A dental click [ǀ] may also be heard, being adopted from the neighboring Khoisan languages. The click may also tend to be heard as alveolar [!].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː

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

• Rukwangali/English for Children, Éditions du Cygne, 2013, ISBN 978-2-84924-310-7
• Biblical passages in Kwangali