| Gbanu | |
| States: | Central African Republic |
| Ethnicity: | Gbaya |
| Speakers: | 95,000 |
| Date: | 1996 |
| Ref: | e25 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Savannas |
| Fam4: | Gbaya |
| Fam5: | Eastern |
| Fam6: | Gbanu–Ngbaka |
| Iso3: | gbv |
| Glotto: | gban1260 |
| Glottorefname: | Gbanu |
Gbanu (Gbànù, Banu, Gbanou) is a Gbaya language of the Central African Republic. The people do not consider themselves to be ethnically Gbaya.
Gbanu has 14 vowels, oral pronounced as //i e ɛ a ɔ o u// and nasal pronounced as //ĩ ẽ ɛ̃ ã ɔ̃ õ ũ//. Syllables may be maximally CVN, where N is pronounced as //m// or pronounced as //n//. There are four tones on CV syllables, high, low, rising, and falling. Words have six tone patterns, those four plus dipping (falling–rising) and peaking (rising–falling).
| Close | i | ĩ | u | ũ | |
| Close-mid | e | ẽ | o | õ | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɛ̃ | ɔ | ɔ̃ | |
| Open | a | ã |
| m | n | j~ɲ | w~ŋm | |||
| mb | nd | ŋɡ | ŋmɡb | |||
| ɓ~ˀm | ɗ~ˀn | |||||
| p | t | k | kp | ʔ | ||
| b | d | ɡ | ɡb | |||
| f | s | h | ||||
| v | z | |||||
| nz | ||||||
| l |
Intervocallically, the only voicing distinction that is maintained is pronounced as //s, z//; otherwise only voiceless oral stops and fricatives occur between vowels. Nasal consonants lightly nasalize surrounding vowels, and nasal vowels, including those triggered by nasal consonants, nasalize the glottalized consonants. The approximants pronounced as //j w// do not occur with nasal vowels, and so may not be phonemic; pronounced as //j~ɲ/, /w~mŋ// may be posited as the underlying phonemes.