Geographic
distribution Central African Republic, Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan Linguistic classification Niger–Congo?
Atlantic–Congo?
Savanna?
Ubangian Subdivisions Banda
Ngbandi
Sere
Ngbaka–Mba Glottolog uban1244 (Ubangian + Zande) | ||
The Ubangian languages form a fairly close-knit language family of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango. Ubangian languages are generally included in the Niger–Congo family, though this has not been demonstrated, and they may possibly constitute an independent family.
Internal classification
Boyd and Moñino (2010) removed the Gbaya and Zande languages. The half dozen remaining branches are coherent, but their interrelationships are not straightforward. Williamson & Blench (2000) propose the following arrangement:
In addition there is the Ngombe language, whose placement is uncertain due to a paucity of data.
Note: The ambiguous name Ngbaka is used for various languages in the area. Generally, singular Ngbaka language refers to one of the main Gbaya languages, whereas plural Ngbaka languages refers to a branch of Ubangian.