Kongo languages explained

Kongo
Also Known As:	Kikongo
Familycolor:	Niger-Congo
Fam2:	Atlantic–Congo
Fam3:	Volta-Congo
Fam4:	Benue–Congo
Fam5:	Bantoid
Fam6:	Southern Bantoid
Fam7:	Bantu (Zone H.10)
Fam8:	Kongo–Yaka–Sira?
Glotto:	kiko1235
Glottorefname:	Kikongo language cluster
Map:	LanguageMap-Kikongo-Kituba.png
Mapcaption:	Map of the area where Kongo and Kituba as the lingua franca are spoken.

The Kongo languages are a clade of Bantu languages, coded Zone H.10 in Guthrie's classification, that are spoken by the Bakongo:

Beembe (Pangwa, Doondo, Kamba, Gangala), Ndingi, Kunyi, Mboka, Kongo, Western Kongo, Laari (Laadi), Vili, Yombe, Suundi

Languages

Glottolog, based on Koen Bostoen (2018, 2019),^{[1] [2] [3]} classifies two dozen languages of the Kongo language cluster as follows:

• Kikongo language cluster
  • Hungan-Samba: Hungan, Samba
  • Nuclear cluster
    • Yaka-Suku: Suku, Yaka-Pelende-Lonzo
    • "Kikongoic"
      • Beembe
      • Kambakunyic Kikongo
        • Kamba-Kunyi: Kaamba, Kunyi
        • Kilaadic Kikongo
          • Nuclear Northern Kikongo: Doondo, Laari, Suundi
          • Central-Southern Kikongo
            • Southeastern Kikongo
              • Eastern Kikongo
              • Southern Kikongo: Hungu-Pombo, Koongo-Kituba (Congo Kituba, DRC Kituba, South-Central Koongo)
            • West Kikongo
              • San Salvador Kongo
              • Yombe
              • Vilic
                • Vili
                • Lumbuic
                  • Lumbu, Bwisi
                  • Ngubi

Punu - Vumbu (Vungu), Sangu - Sira - Barama

These are closest to Mbuun, Ngongo and Nsong-Mpiin.

Notes and References

1. Book: Bostoen . Koen . de Schryver . Gilles-Maurice . 2018 . Seventeenth-century Kikongo is not the ancestor of present-day Kikongo . Bostoen . Koen . Brinkman . Inge . The Kongo kingdom: the origins, dynamics and cosmopolitan culture of an African polity . 60–102 . Cambridge . Cambridge University Press.
2. Book: Bostoen . Koen . de Schryver . Gilles-Maurice . 2018 . Langues et évolution linguistique dans le royaume et l’aire kongo . Clist . Bernard-Olivier . de Maret . Pierre . Bostoen . Koen . Une archéologie des provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo . 51–55 . Oxford . Archaeopress.
3. Pacchiarotti . Sara . Chousou-Polydouri . Natalia . Bostoen . Koen . 2019 . Untangling the West-Coastal Bantu mess: identification, geography and phylogeny of the Bantu B50-80 languages . Africana Linguistica . 21 . 87–162.