Dialects TongweBende | Native speakers 40,000 (1999–2001) | |
Language family Niger–CongoAtlantic–CongoBenue–CongoSouthern BantoidBantu (Zone F.10)Tongwe ISO 639-3 Either:tny – Tongwebdp – Bende Glottolog tong1320 (Tongwe)bend1258 (Bende) |
Tongwe (Sitongwe) and Bende (Sibende) constitute a clade of Bantu languages coded Zone F.10 in Guthrie's classification. According to Nurse & Philippson (2003), they form a valid node. Indeed, at 90% lexical similarity they may be dialects of a single language.
References
Tongwe language Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA