| Ngas | |
| Also Known As: | Ongamo |
| States: | Tanzania |
| Ethnicity: | Ngasa people |
| Extinct: | 2012 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Nilo-Saharan |
| Fam1: | Nilo-Saharan? |
| Fam2: | Eastern Sudanic? |
| Fam3: | Southern Eastern Sudanic? |
| Fam4: | Nilotic |
| Fam5: | Eastern Nilotic |
| Fam6: | Ateker-Lotuko–Maa |
| Fam7: | Lotuko–Maa |
| Fam8: | Ongamo-Maa |
| Iso3: | nsg |
| Glotto: | ngas1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Ngasa |
Ongamo, or Ngas, is an extinct Eastern Nilotic language of Tanzania. It is closely related to the Maa languages, but more distantly than they are to each other. Ongamo has 60% of lexical similarity with Maasai, Samburu, and Camus. Speakers have shifted to Chagga, a dominant regional Bantu language.
An expansion of Ngasa speakers onto the plains north of Mount Kilimanjaro occurred in the 12th century. The language was mutually intelligible with Proto-Maasai during that period. Vocabulary retention from this time attests to the cultivation of sorghum and elusine by the Ngas. Subsequent immigration of Bantu-speaking Chagga over the next five centuries considerably reduced the extent and viability of the Ngasa language.[2]
Ngasa profile on the Endangered Languages Project