Bongo (Bungu), also known as Dor, is a Central Sudanic language spoken by the Bongo people in sparsely populated areas of Bahr al Ghazal in South Sudan.
Phonology Consonants Labial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Labial-velar Glottal Nasal Stop Voiceless ~ Voiced Nasalized Implosive Tap Fricative Approximant
Vowels Bongo has ten vowel qualities, which can be long or short.
Front Central BackClose Near-close Mid Near-open Open
Bongo also has vowel harmony. The "heavy" vowels, written with diaereses, () contrast with the "light" vowels ().
Tone Bongo is tonal language that has the high (á), mid (ā), low (à) and falling (â) tones.
All falling tones occur on either long vowels or on vowel clusters or glides. When the tonal fall is not due to a preceding high tone, it can be indicated by a high tone followed by a low tone.
Tone Example Translationhigh low falling /táà/
Numerals Bongo has a quinary-vigesimal numeral system.
Number Bongo word 1 kɔ̀tʊ́ 2 ŋɡɔ̀r 3 mʊ̀tːà 4 ʔɛ́w 5 múì 6 dɔ̀kɔtʊ́ 7 dɔ́ŋɡɔr 8 dɔ̀mʊ́tːà 9 dɔ̀mʔɛ́w 10 kɪ̀ː 11 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) kɔ̀tʊ́ 12 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) ŋɡɔ̀r 13 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) mʊ̀tːà 14 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) ʔɛ́w 15 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) múì 16 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) dɔ̀kɔtʊ́ 17 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) dɔ́ŋɡɔr 18 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) dɔ̀mʊ́tːà 19 kɪː̀ (dɔ̀ː) dɔ̀mʔɛ́w 20 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ 21 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː kɔ̀tʊ́ 22 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː ŋɡɔ̀r 23 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː mʊ̀tːà 24 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː ʔɛ́w 25 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː múì 26 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː dɔ̀kɔtʊ́ 27 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː dɔ́ŋɡɔr 28 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː dɔ̀mʊ́tːà 29 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː dɔ̀mʔɛ́w 30 mbàba kɔ̀tʊ́ dɔ̀ː kɪ̀ː 40 mbàba ŋɡɔ̀r 50 mbàba ŋɡɔ̀r dɔ̀ː kɪ̀ː 60 mbàba mʊ̀tːà 70 mbàba mʊ̀tːà dɔ̀ː kɪ̀ː 80 mbàba ʔɛ́w 90 mbàba ʔɛ́w dɔ̀ː kɪ̀ː 100 mbàla múì 200 mbàba múì dɔ̀ː múì 1000 mbuda kɔ̀tʊ́ 2000 mbuda ŋɡɔ̀r
Scholarship The first ethnologists to work with the Bongo language were John Petherick, who published Bongo word lists in his 1861 work, Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa; Theodor von Heuglin, who also published Bongo word lists in Reise in das Gebiet des Weissen Nil, &c. 1862-1864 in 1869; and Georg August Schweinfurth, who contributed sentences and vocabularies in his Linguistische Ergebnisse, Einer Reise Nach Centralafrika in 1873. E. E. Evans-Pritchard published additional Bongo word lists in 1937.
More recent scholarship has been done by Eileen Kilpatrick, who published a phonology of Bongo in 1985.
References
Further reading
External links Bongo at Gurtong The Jesus Film in Bongo Bongo at WALS Online