Ngasa language

Ongamo, or Ngas, is an extinct Eastern Nilotic language of Tanzania. It is closely related to the Maa languages, but more distantly than they are to each other. Ongamo has 60% of lexical similarity with Maasai, Samburu, and Camus. Speakers have shifted to Chagga, a dominant regional Bantu language.

Ngas
Ongamo
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Ngasa people
Extinct	2012[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Sudanic? Southern Eastern Sudanic? Nilotic Eastern Nilotic Ateker-Lotuko–Maa Lotuko–Maa Ongamo-Maa Ngas
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nsg
Glottolog	ngas1238
ELP	Ngasa

History

An expansion of Ngasa speakers onto the plains north of Mount Kilimanjaro occurred in the 12th century. The language was mutually intelligible with Proto-Maasai during that period. Vocabulary retention from this time attests to the cultivation of sorghum and eleusine by the Ngas. Subsequent immigration of Bantu-speaking Chagga over the next five centuries considerably reduced the extent and viability of the Ngasa language.^[2]

References

1. "Ngasa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
2. Leeman, Bernard and informants. (1994). 'Ongamoi (KiNgassa): a Nilotic remnant of Kilimanjaro'. Cymru UK: Cyhoeddwr Joseph Biddulph Publisher. 20pp.

Further reading

• Sommer, Gabriele (1992) 'A Survey on Language Death in Africa', in Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 301–417.

External links

• Ngasa profile on the Endangered Languages Project