| Mongo | |
| Also Known As: | Nkundu |
| Nativename: | Lomongo |
| Region: | Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Speakers: | 400,000 |
| Date: | 1995 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam7: | Bantu (Zone C) |
| Fam8: | Bangi–Ntomba |
| Fam9: | Mongo–Bolia |
| Fam10: | Mongo–Nkunda (C.60) |
| Iso2: | lol |
| Iso3: | lol |
| Lc1: | ymg |
| Ld1: | Yamongeri |
| Guthrie: | C.61,611; C.36H |
| Glotto: | mong1338 |
| Glottoname: | Mongo |
| Glotto2: | bafo1235 |
| Glottoname2: | Bafoto |
| Ethnicity: | Mongo people |
Mongo, also called Nkundo or Mongo-Nkundu (Lomongo, Lonkundu), 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.
There are several dialects. Maho (2009) lists one of these, Bafoto (Batswa de l'Equateur), C.611, as a separate language. The others are:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | plain | p b | t d | k ɡ | |||
| prenasal | ᵐp ᵐb | ⁿt ⁿd | ᵑk ᵑɡ | ||||
| Affricate | plain | t͡s d͡z | |||||
| prenasal | ⁿt͡s ⁿd͡z | ||||||
| Fricative | plain | f | s | h | |||
| prenasal | ⁿs | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | ||
| Close-mid | e | o | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a |
In 1921, Edward Algernon Ruskin, a Christian missionary at Bongandanga from 1891 until 1935 in what was then the Belgian Congo,[2] published Mongo Proverbs and Fables, with the Mongo text and an English translation.[3] 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:
There are also 21 Mongo fables in the book, including a story about Ulu, the trickster Tortoise.[4]
In an earlier booklet, Proverbs, Fables, Similes and Sayings of the Bamongo, published in 1897, Ruskin provides a word by word analysis of some Mongo proverbs, often accompanied by a brief fable.[5]
In 1909, Frederick Starr published a collection of 150 Nkundo (Mongo) proverbs with English translations, "Proverbs of Upper Congo,"[6] which he selected from a 1904 publication, Bekolo bi' ampaka ba Nkundo. Bikolongo la nsako. Beki Bakola otakanyaka (Stories of the Elders of Nkundo: Adages and Proverbs Gathered by Bakola) by Bakola, also known as Ellsworth Farris, and Royal J. Dye, missionaries based near Coquilhatville (now Mbandaka).[7] Here are some of those proverbs:
Starr is also the author of A Bibliography of Congo Languages.[8] For more recent bibliography, see A. J. de Rop's La littérature orale mongo, published in 1974.[9] 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.[10]