Mbandja (Banja, Mbanza) is the largest of the Banda languages. There are 350,000 speakers in DRC, 10,000 in the Republic of Congo, and an unknown number in CAR.
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | (ŋ) | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | k͡p | ʔ | ||
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ɡ͡b | ||||
| prenasal | ᵐb | ⁿd | ⁿd͡ʒ | ᵑɡ | ᵑɡ͡b | ||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | |||||
| voiced | β | v | z | ʒ | ɦ | ||||
| prenasal | ⁿz | ||||||||
| Rhotic | r | ||||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||||
- [ŋ] mainly occurs as a sound of /n/, when preceding a velar consonant.[2]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | ĩ | ũ | |
| Mid | ẽ | õ | |
| Open | ã |
References
- ^ Mbandja at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Tingbo, Nyi-Zonga (1978). Étude grammaticale de la langue mbandza (dialecte de báláwo). Université Nationale du Zaïre: Lubumbashi.
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