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Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of Congo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mongo, also called Nkundo or Mongo-Nkundu (Lomongo, Lonkundu), is a Bantu language spoken by several of the Mongo peoples in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mongo speakers reside in the north-west of the country over a large area inside the curve of the Congo River. Mongo is a tonal language.
Mongo | |
---|---|
Nkundu | |
Lomongo | |
Region | Democratic Republic of Congo |
Ethnicity | Mongo people |
Native speakers | (400,000 cited 1995)[1] |
Niger–Congo?
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | lol |
ISO 639-3 | lol – inclusive codeIndividual code: ymg – Yamongeri |
Glottolog | mong1338 Mongobafo1235 Bafoto |
C.61,611; C.36H [2] |
There are several dialects. Maho (2009) lists one of these, Bafoto (Batswa de l'Equateur), C.611, as a separate language. The others are:[2]
In 1921, Edward Algernon Ruskin, a Christian missionary at Bongandanga from 1891 until 1935 in what was then the Belgian Congo,[4] published Mongo Proverbs and Fables, with the Mongo text and an English translation.[5] As Ruskin explains in the foreword to the book, his goal was to train missionaries in the Mongo language. The book contains 405 Mongo proverbs. Here are some examples:
There are also 21 Mongo fables in the book, including a story about Ulu, the trickster Tortoise.[6]
In an earlier booklet, Proverbs, Fables, Similes and Sayings of the Bamongo, published in 1897, Ruskin provides a word by word analysis of some Mongo proverbs, often accompanied by a brief fable.[7]
In 1909, Frederick Starr published a collection of 150 Nkundo (Mongo) proverbs with English translations, "Proverbs of Upper Congo,"[8] which he selected from a 1904 publication, Bekolo bi' ampaka ba Nkundo. Bikolongo la nsako. Beki Bakola otakanyaka (Stories of the Elders of Nkundo: Adages and Proverbs Gathered by Bakola) by Bakola, also known as Ellsworth Farris, and Royal J. Dye, missionaries based near Coquilhatville (now Mbandaka).[9] Here are some of those proverbs:
Starr is also the author of A Bibliography of Congo Languages.[10] For more recent bibliography, see A. J. de Rop's La littérature orale mongo, published in 1974.[11] For a comprehensive study of Mongo proverbs, see Hulstaert's Proverbes mongo, published in 1958, which contains over 2500 Mongo proverbs with accompanying French translations.[12]
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