Ngbandi
/ŋɡ͡bàn.dí/noun
Ngbandi refers to a Central African ethnic group and to the closely related Ubangi languages spoken by its communities.
Did you know?Ngbandi is not one single uniform speech variety: the name covers a cluster of closely related languages spoken across modern-day Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Etymological Timeline
Precolonial period
Ngbandi languages
Ngbandi
“An ethnonym and language name used among communities of the northwestern Congo Basin; the word’s deeper internal etymology is uncertain.”
19th Century
European records
Bangandi / Ngbandi
“European travelers and colonial-era writers recorded varying spellings of the ethnonym.”
Late 19th–Early 20th Century
French
Ngbandi
“French administrative and scholarly sources standardized forms of the name while describing the people and their languages.”
20th Century
Linguistics
Ngbandi
“Linguists classified Ngbandi varieties within the Ubangi branch of the Niger-Congo language family.”
Modern English
English
Ngbandi
“The established name for the people, their languages, and related cultural identities in Central Africa.”