Kwangali language

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.

Kwangali
Rukwangali
Native to	Namibia, Angola
Region	Okavango River
Native speakers	152,000 (2018)[1]
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[2]

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 type [ǀ] may also be heard, being adopted from the neighboring Khoisan languages. The clicks may also tend to be heard as alveolar [!].[3]

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].[4]

References

1. "Kwangali". Ethnologue. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. Dammann (1957)
4. Sommer, Gabi (2003). Western Savanna. Nurse, Derek and Philippson, Gérard (eds.), The Bantu languages: London & New York: Routledge. pp. 566–580.

• 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