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Kimbundu

Bantu language of northwest Angola

Summary

Bantu language of northwest Angola

Field	Value
name	Kimbundu
altname	North Mbundu
states	Angola
region	Bengo Province, Luanda Province, Icolo e Bengo Province, Cuanza Norte Province, Cuanza Sul Province, Malanje Province
ethnicity	Ambundu
speakers	million
date	2024
ref
familycolor	Niger-Congo
fam2	Atlantic–Congo
fam3	Benue–Congo
fam4	Bantoid
fam5	Southern Bantoid
fam6	Bantu (Zone H)
fam7	Kimbundu languages (H.20)
dia1	Kimbundu proper (Ngola)
dia2	Mbamba (Njinga)
nation	Angola ("National language")
iso2	kmb
iso3	kmb
glotto	kimb1241
glottorefname	Kimbundu
guthrie	H.21

A Kimbundu speaker, recorded in [[Angola

Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called MbunduA language name 'mbundu' was used by Guthrie in his 1948 classification, for his group R10 (the language is Umbundu, the Ovimbundu's language. Kimbundu is found as Ndongo-H21). This has become obsolete: In his 1971 classification, the group H20 is called the Kimbundu group, and the R10 group is called Umbundu group. See: M. Guthrie, The Classification of the Bantu Languages (OUP, 1948), and M. Guthrie, Comparative Bantu, Vol 2 (Gregg Press, 1971). Glottolog classifies Kimbundu in a Mbundu group, which is in the Northern Njila group, and Umbundu (the Ovimbundu's language) in the Kunene group, which is itself in the Southern Njila group. see the Glottolog entry or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola.

It is the native language of 3.728 million people (as of 2024), with its speakers mostly concentrated in the north-west of the country, notably in the Bengo, Luanda, Icolo e Bengo, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul , and the Malanje provinces. It is spoken by the Ambundu.

Phonology

Consonants

Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal	Stop	plain	voiced	prenasalized	Fricative	voiceless	voiced	prenasalized	Nasal	Approximant
			()
		()

Allophones:

[ɸ] and [β] are allophones of /p/ and /b/, respectively, before /a/ and /u/. The phoneme /l/ is phonetically a flap [ɾ], a voiced plosive [d] or its palatalized version [dʲ] when before the front high vowel /i/. In the same way, the alveolars /s/, /z/ and /n/ are palatalized to [ʃ], [ʒ] and [ɲ], respectively, before [i]. There may be an epenthesis of [g] after /ŋ/ in word medial positions, thus creating a phonetic cluster [ŋg] in a process of fortition.

There is long distance nasal harmony, in which /l/ is realized as [n] if the previous morphemes contain /m/ or /n/, but not prenasalized stops.

Vowels

Front	Back	Close	Mid	Open

There are two contrasting tones: a high (á) and a low tone (à). There is also a downstep in cases of tonal sandhi.

Vowel harmony

There is vowel harmony in two groups (the high vowels /i, u/ and the mid and low vowels /e, o, a/) that applies only for verbal morphology. In some morphemes, vowels may be consistently deleted to avoid a hiatus.

Kimbundu alphabet

Consonants

B D F G H J K L M N P S T V W X Y Z

Vowels

A E I O U

Loans

European Portuguese

There is a small number of words of Kimbundu origin and many of those are indirect loans, borrowed via Angolan Portuguese.

The examples generally understood by most or all speakers of Angolan and European Portuguese include

bué (, "very, a lot"),

cota (, "old person")

mambo ()

Conjugation

Personal pronouns	Translation
Eme	I
Eie / Eye	You
Muene	He or she
Etu	We
Enu	You
Ene	They

Conjugating the verb to be (kuala; also kukala in Kimbundu) in the present:

Ene ala	They are

Conjugating the verb to have (kuala ni; also kukala ni in Kimbundu) in the present :

Ene ala ni	They have

Notes

References

(2025-11-20). "Resultados Definitivos do Recenseamento Geral da População e Habitação - 2024".
{{Glottolog. kimb1241. Kimbundu
(2003-01-01). "Narrow Bantu "H"". Oxford University Press.
"Mbundu".
Xavier, Francisco da Silva. (2010). "Fonologia segmental e supra-segmental do Quimbundo: variedades de Luanda, Bengo, Quanza Norte e Malange". University of São Paulo.
[https://omniglot.com/writing/kimbundu.htm Omniglot - Kimbundu]
S.A, Priberam Informática. "bué".
S.A, Priberam Informática. "Cota".
"A língua kimbundu". Ciberduvidas da lingua portuguesa.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

northern-mbundu kimbundu-languages languages-of-angola

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