Mongo language


Mongo, also called Nkundo or Mongo-Nkundu, 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.

Dialects

There are several dialects. Maho lists one of these, Bafoto, C.611, as a separate language. The others are:
  • Kutu, including Longombe
  • Bokote, including Ngata
  • Booli
  • Bosaka
  • Konda, including Bosanga-Ekonda
  • Ekota
  • Emoma
  • Ikongo, including Lokalo-Lomela
  • Iyembe
  • Lionje, Nsongo, Ntomba
  • Yamongo
  • Mbole, including Nkengo, Yenge, Yongo, Bosanga-Mbole, Mangilongo, Lwankamba
  • Nkole
  • South Mongo, including Bolongo, Belo, Panga, Acitu
  • Yailima
  • Ngombe-Lomela, Longombe, ''Ngome à Múná''

    Phonology

Consonants

  • /d͡z/ can be heard as alveolar or dental and /t͡s/ can be alveolar or postalveolar , when before front vowels.

    Vowels

Oral literature

In 1921, Edward Algernon Ruskin, a Christian missionary at Bongandanga from 1891 until 1935 in what was then the Belgian Congo, published ', with the Mongo text and an English translation. 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:
  • "Ntambaka jit'a nkusa."
  • "Nkema ntawaka ndesanya."
  • "Ise aomaki njoku, beke bempate nko?"
  • "Tusake wese; wunyu botaka 'akata."
There are also 21 Mongo fables in the book, including a story about Ulu, the trickster Tortoise.
In an earlier booklet, ', published in 1897, Ruskin provides a word by word analysis of some Mongo proverbs, often accompanied by a brief fable.
In 1909, Frederick Starr published a collection of 150 Nkundo proverbs with English translations, "Proverbs of Upper Congo," which he selected from a 1904 publication, Bekolo bi' ampaka ba Nkundo. Bikolongo la nsako. Beki Bakola otakanyaka by Bakola, also known as Ellsworth Farris, and Royal J. Dye, missionaries based near Coquilhatville. Here are some of those proverbs:
  • "Bobimbo nko lobya, nk'ome w'etuka." "The bobimbo bears no great flowers, but what large fruit it has."
  • "Bocik'a nsoso: ng'omanga ntokumba, ifoyala lobi enkolonkoko." "Spare the chicken: if the wild-cat does not take it, it will become large."
  • "Boseka nkoi, lokola nkingo." "The friendship of the leopard, a claw in your neck."
  • "Bosai'omonkolo bondotaji mpota, beuma beyokoka l'alongo." "One finger gashed, all the fingers are covered with blood."
Starr is also the author of A Bibliography of Congo Languages. For more recent bibliography, see A. J. de Rop's La littérature orale mongo, published in 1974. 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.