Sango language
| Sango | |
|---|---|
| yângâ tî sängö | |
| Pronunciation | [jáŋɡá tí sāŋɡō] |
| Native to | Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo |
|
Native speakers
|
(450,000 cited 1988) 1.6 million as second language (no date) |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
 Central African Republic
|
| Regulated by | Institute of Applied Linguistics |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | sg |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: sag – Sango snj – Riverain Sango |
| Glottolog | sang1327 |
| Linguasphere | 93-ABB-aa |
Sango (also spelled: Sangho) is the primary language spoken in the Central African Republic.
Some linguists, following William J. Samarin, classify it as a Ngbandi-based creole; however, others (like Marcel Diki-Kidiri, Charles H. Morrill) reject that classification and say that changes in Sango structures (both internally and externally) can be explained quite well without a creolization process.
According to the creolization hypothesis, Sango is exceptional in that it is an African- rather than European-based creole. Although French has contributed numerous loanwords, Sango's structure is wholly African.
A variety of Sango was used as a lingua franca along the Ubangi River before French colonization, in the late 1800s. The French army recruited Central Africans, causing them to increasingly use Sango as a means of interethnic communication. Throughout the 20th century, missionaries promoted Sango because of its wide usage.
Originally used by river traders, Sango arose as a lingua franca based on the Northern Ngbandi dialect of the Sango tribe, part of the Ngbandi language cluster, with some French influence.
The rapid growth of the city of Bangui since the 1960s has had significant implications for the development of Sango, with the creation, for the first time, of a population of first-language speakers. Whereas rural immigrants to the city spoke many different languages and used Sango only as a lingua franca, their children use Sango as their main (and sometimes only) language. That has led to a rapid expansion of the lexicon, including both formal and slang terms. Also, its new position as the everyday language of the capital city has led to Sango gaining greater status and being used increasingly in fields for which it was previously the norm to use French.
Sango is widespread in the Central African Republic, with 350,000 speakers at the 1970 census. It is also spoken as a lingua franca in southern Chad, where it is probably not spoken natively and its use is decreasing, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where its use is increasing.
Today, Sango is both a national and official language of the Central African Republic, which makes the Central African Republic one of the few African countries to have an official language not a colonial language, such as English, French, and Portuguese.
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Wikipedia