Sango language
Encyclopedia
Sango is the primary language spoken in the Central African Republic
: it has approximately 1,600,000 second-language speakers, but only about 404,000 native speakers, mainly in the towns.
; others, however (e.g. Marcel Diki-Kidiri, Charles H. Morrill) reject this classification, saying 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.
before French colonization in the late 1800s. The French army recruited Central Africans, causing them to increasingly use Sango as a means of inter-ethnic communication. Throughout the twentieth century missionaries promoted Sango due to its wide usage.
Originally used by river traders, Sango arose as a vehicular language 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. First, this has led to a rapid expansion of the lexicon, including both formal and slang terms. Second, its new position as the everyday language of the capital city has led to Sango gaining greater status and being used increasingly in fields where it was previously the norm to use French.
, where most of the vocabulary - particularly "learned" words - is derived from Latin
, Greek
, or French
, while the basic vocabulary remains strongly Germanic
. However, more recent studies suggest that this result is specific to a particular sociolect - the so-called "functionary" variety. Morrill's work, completed in 1997, revealed that there were three sociologically distinct norms emerging in the Sango language: an urban "radio" variety which is top-ranked by 80% of his interviewees, and has a very few French loan words, a so called "pastor" variety, which is scored 60%, and a "functionary" variety, spoken by learned people who make the highest use of French loan words while speaking Sango, and this variety scores 40% of the interviewees.
In 1984, President André Kolingba
signed 'Décret No 84.025', establishing an official orthography for Sango. The official Sango alphabet consists of 22 letters:
Letters are pronounced as their IPA equivalent, except for, pronounced as [j]. Additionally the digraphs ⟨kp, gb, mb, mv, nd, ng, ngb, nz⟩ are pronounced [k͡p], [ɡ͡b], [ᵐb], [(ᶬv)], [ⁿd], [ᵑɡ], [ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b] and [ⁿz] respectively.
⟨’b⟩, ⟨ty⟩, and ⟨dy⟩ may be used in loan words not fully integrated into Sango's phonological system. Additionally, the letters C, J, Q, X may be used in proper names.
The official orthography
of Sango contains the following consonant
s: ⟨p, b, t, d, k, g, kp, gb, mb, mv, nd, ng, ngb, nz, f, v, s, z, h, l, r, y, w⟩, to which some add ⟨’b⟩ for the implosive /ɓ/. Sango has seven oral vowel
s, /a e ɛ i o ɔ u/, of which five, /ĩ ã ɛ̃ ɔ̃ ũ/, occur nasalized
. In the official orthography, ⟨e⟩ stands for both /e/ and /ɛ/, and ⟨o⟩ stands for both /o/ and /ɔ/; nasal vowels are written ⟨in, en, an, on, un⟩.
Sango has three tone
s: low, mid, and high. In standard orthography, low tone is unmarked, ⟨e⟩, mid tone is marked with dieresis, ⟨ë⟩, and high tone with circumflex
, ⟨ê⟩. So do-re-mi would be written ⟨do-rë-mî⟩.
Sango has little written material apart from religious literature, though some basic literacy material has been developed.
Palatal affricates occur in loan words and certain dialects. In some dialects there are alternations between [ᶬv] and [m], [ᵐb] and [ᵑ͡ᵐg͡b], [ᵐb] and [b], word-medial [l] and [r], and word-initial [h] and [ʔ]. [ᶬv] is quite rare.
and .
Words are generally monosyllabic or bisyllabic, less commonly trisyllabic. Four-syllable words are created via reduplication
and compounding, and may also be written as two words (e.g. kêtêkêtê or kêtê kêtê 'tiny bit', walikundû or wa likundû 'sorcerer').
, but minimal pair
s exist, for instance dü 'give birth' versus dû 'hole'.
Monosyllabic loan words from French usually have the tone pattern high-low falling (e.g. bâan 'bench' from French banc). In multi-syllabic words all syllables carry low tone except the final syllable, which is lengthened and takes a descending tone. The final tone is generally mid-low falling for nouns (e.g. 'ananäa' pineapple from French ananas) and high-low falling for verbs (e.g. 'aretêe' 'to stop' from French arrêter).
Tones in isolation have ideolectual variation, and may also be affected by the mother language of non-native speakers.
with subject–verb–object word order, as in English. Noun phrases are of the form determiner-adjective-noun:
Plurals are marked with the proclitic â-, which precedes noun phrases:
â- may be attached to multiple items in the noun phrase by some speakers, but this is less common:
The derivational suffix -ngö nominalizes verbs. It also changes all tones in the verb to mid:
Genitives are normally formed with the preposition tî 'of':
However compounding is becoming increasingly common, for instance dûngü 'well' (note change in tone). Such compounds are sometimes written as two separate words.
The verbal prefix a- is used when the subject is a noun or noun phrase, and absent when the subject is a pronoun or implicit (as in imperatives):
This prefix is sometimes written as a separate word.
The pronoun
s are: mbï "I", mo "you (sg.)", lo "he, she, it", ë "we", âla "you (pl.)", âla "they". Verbs take a prefix a- if not preceded by a pronoun; thus mo yeke "you are", but Bêafrîka ayeke "Central Africa is". Particularly useful verbs include yeke "be", bara "greet" (> bara o "hi!"), hînga "know". Possessives and appositives are formed with the word tî "of": ködörö tî mbï "my country", yângâ tî sängö "Sango language". Another common preposition is na, covering a variety of locative, dative, and instrumental
functions.
For English-speakers there are two main difficulties. First, one must remember not to split double-consonants. The place name Bambari
, for example, must be pronounced ba-mba-ri and not bam-ba-ri. Second, as with any tonal language, one must learn not to vary the tone
according to the context. For example, if one pronounces a question with a rising tone as in English, one may inadvertently be saying an entirely different and inappropriate Sango word at the end of the sentence.
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the north east, South Sudan in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west. The CAR covers a land area of about ,...
: it has approximately 1,600,000 second-language speakers, but only about 404,000 native speakers, mainly in the towns.
Classification
Some linguists, following William J. Samarin, classify it as a Ngbandi-based creoleCreole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
; others, however (e.g. Marcel Diki-Kidiri, Charles H. Morrill) reject this classification, saying 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.
History
A variety of Sango was used as a vehicular language along the Ubangi RiverUbangi River
The Ubangi River , also spelled Oubangui, is the largest right-bank tributary of the Congo River of Central Africa. It begins at the confluence of the Mbomou and Uele Rivers and flows west, then bends to the southwest and passes through Bangui, after which it flows south to the Congo at Liranga....
before French colonization in the late 1800s. The French army recruited Central Africans, causing them to increasingly use Sango as a means of inter-ethnic communication. Throughout the twentieth century missionaries promoted Sango due to its wide usage.
Originally used by river traders, Sango arose as a vehicular language based on the Northern Ngbandi dialect of the Sango tribe, part of the Ngbandi language cluster, with some French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
influence.
The rapid growth of the city of Bangui
Bangui
-Law and government:Bangui is an autonomous commune of the Central African Republic. With an area of 67 km², it is by far the smallest high-level administrative division of the CAR in area but the highest in population...
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
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
, their children use Sango as their main (and sometimes only) language. First, this has led to a rapid expansion of the lexicon, including both formal and slang terms. Second, its new position as the everyday language of the capital city has led to Sango gaining greater status and being used increasingly in fields where it was previously the norm to use French.
Geographic Distribution
Sango is widespread in the Central African Republic, with 350,000 speakers as of the 1988 census. It is also spoken as a trade language in southern Chad, where it is probably not spoken natively and its use is decreasing, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is rapidly spreading.Registers
A study by Taber (1964) indicates that some 490 native Sango words account for about 90% of colloquial speech; however, while French loanwords are much more rarely used, they account for the majority of the vocabulary, particularly in the speech of learned people. The situation might be compared to EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, where most of the vocabulary - particularly "learned" words - is derived from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, or French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, while the basic vocabulary remains strongly Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
. However, more recent studies suggest that this result is specific to a particular sociolect - the so-called "functionary" variety. Morrill's work, completed in 1997, revealed that there were three sociologically distinct norms emerging in the Sango language: an urban "radio" variety which is top-ranked by 80% of his interviewees, and has a very few French loan words, a so called "pastor" variety, which is scored 60%, and a "functionary" variety, spoken by learned people who make the highest use of French loan words while speaking Sango, and this variety scores 40% of the interviewees.
Orthography
Sango began being written by French missionaries, with Catholic and Protestant conventions differing slightly. The 1966 bible and 1968 hymnal were highly influential and still used today.In 1984, President André Kolingba
André Kolingba
André-Dieudonné Kolingba was the fourth president of the Central African Republic , from 1 September 1981 until 1 October 1993. He took power from President David Dacko in a bloodless coup d'état in 1981 and lost power to Ange-Félix Patassé in a democratic election held in 1993...
signed 'Décret No 84.025', establishing an official orthography for Sango. The official Sango alphabet consists of 22 letters:
| 22-Letter Sango Alphabet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A A A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :... |
B B B is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds , most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive.-History:... |
D D D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the... |
E E E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:... |
F F F is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The origin of ⟨f⟩ is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like or . Graphically, it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club... |
G G G is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,... |
H H H .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts.... |
I I I is the ninth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:In Semitic, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound... |
K K K is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA.... |
L L Ł or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka , Łatynka , Wilamowicean, Navajo, Dene Suline, Inupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai alphabet... |
M M M is the thirteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu . Semitic Mem probably originally pictured water... |
N N N is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet... |
O O O is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin , which represented a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a... |
P P P is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Usage:In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words... |
R R R is the eighteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was rêš . It developed into Greek Ρ and Latin R... |
S S S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent... |
T T T is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets... |
U U U is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details.... |
V V V is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Letter:The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y. See F for details.... |
W W W is the 23rd letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.In other Germanic languages, including German, its pronunciation is similar or identical to that of English V... |
Y Y Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound... |
Z Z Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal... |
|||||||||||
Letters are pronounced as their IPA equivalent, except for
⟨’b⟩, ⟨ty⟩, and ⟨dy⟩ may be used in loan words not fully integrated into Sango's phonological system. Additionally, the letters C, J, Q, X may be used in proper names.
The official orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
of Sango contains the following consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s: ⟨p, b, t, d, k, g, kp, gb, mb, mv, nd, ng, ngb, nz, f, v, s, z, h, l, r, y, w⟩, to which some add ⟨’b⟩ for the implosive /ɓ/. Sango has seven oral vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, /a e ɛ i o ɔ u/, of which five, /ĩ ã ɛ̃ ɔ̃ ũ/, occur nasalized
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
. In the official orthography, ⟨e⟩ stands for both /e/ and /ɛ/, and ⟨o⟩ stands for both /o/ and /ɔ/; nasal vowels are written ⟨in, en, an, on, un⟩.
Sango has three tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
s: low, mid, and high. In standard orthography, low tone is unmarked, ⟨e⟩, mid tone is marked with dieresis, ⟨ë⟩, and high tone with circumflex
Circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic used in the written forms of many languages, and is also commonly used in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus —a translation of the Greek περισπωμένη...
, ⟨ê⟩. So do-re-mi would be written ⟨do-rë-mî⟩.
Sango has little written material apart from religious literature, though some basic literacy material has been developed.
Vowels
Sango has seven oral and five nasal vowels. Vowel quality and number of nasalized vowels may be affected by the mother tongue of non-native speakers of Sango.| Oral vowels | Nasal vowel Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation... s |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
Front | Back | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u | ĩ | ũ |
| Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
e | o | ||
| Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel... |
ɛ | ɔ | ɛ̃ | ɔ̃ |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a | ã | ||
Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labio- dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental Interdental consonant Interdental consonants are produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Labial- velar Labial-velar consonant Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as and the approximant .... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p b (ɓ) | t d | k ɡ | k͡p ɡ͡b | ||||
| Prenasalized Prenasalized consonant Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition... |
ᵐb | (ᶬv) | ⁿd | ⁿz | nj | ᵑɡ | ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b | |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f v | s z | h | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l r | j | w |
Palatal affricates occur in loan words and certain dialects. In some dialects there are alternations between [ᶬv] and [m], [ᵐb] and [ᵑ͡ᵐg͡b], [ᵐb] and [b], word-medial [l] and [r], and word-initial [h] and [ʔ]. [ᶬv] is quite rare.
Syllable structure
Syllable structure is generally CV. Consecutive vowels are rare but do occur. Consonants may be labialized or palatalized, orthographicallyWords are generally monosyllabic or bisyllabic, less commonly trisyllabic. Four-syllable words are created via reduplication
Reduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
and compounding, and may also be written as two words (e.g. kêtêkêtê or kêtê kêtê 'tiny bit', walikundû or wa likundû 'sorcerer').
Tone
Sango has three basic tones (high, mid, and low), with contour tones also occurring, generally in French loanwords. Tones have a low functional loadFunctional load
In linguistics and especially phonology, functional load refers to the importance of certain features in making distinctions in a language...
, but minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
s exist, for instance dü 'give birth' versus dû 'hole'.
Monosyllabic loan words from French usually have the tone pattern high-low falling (e.g. bâan 'bench' from French banc). In multi-syllabic words all syllables carry low tone except the final syllable, which is lengthened and takes a descending tone. The final tone is generally mid-low falling for nouns (e.g. 'ananäa' pineapple from French ananas) and high-low falling for verbs (e.g. 'aretêe' 'to stop' from French arrêter).
Tones in isolation have ideolectual variation, and may also be affected by the mother language of non-native speakers.
Grammar
Sango is an isolating languageIsolating language
An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme...
with subject–verb–object word order, as in English. Noun phrases are of the form determiner-adjective-noun:
| mbênï | kêtê | môlengê | |
| indef. | small | child |
- "a small child"
Plurals are marked with the proclitic â-, which precedes noun phrases:
| âmbênï | kêtê | môlengê | |
| PL-indef. | small | child |
- "some small children"
â- may be attached to multiple items in the noun phrase by some speakers, but this is less common:
| âkötä | (â)zo | |
| PL-big | person |
- "important people/dignitaries"
The derivational suffix -ngö nominalizes verbs. It also changes all tones in the verb to mid:
| kono | to grow, be big | kîri | to return, repeat | |
| könöngö | size | kïrïngö | return |
Genitives are normally formed with the preposition tî 'of':
| dû | tî | ngû | |
| hole | of | water |
- "water hole, well"
However compounding is becoming increasingly common, for instance dûngü 'well' (note change in tone). Such compounds are sometimes written as two separate words.
The verbal prefix a- is used when the subject is a noun or noun phrase, and absent when the subject is a pronoun or implicit (as in imperatives):
| âmôlengê | tî | lo | agä | |
| PL-child | of | 3S | SM-come |
- "his children came"
adü lo SM-give.birth 3S - "he was born" (lit. "someone bore him")
löndö mo gä rise 3S come - "get up and come (here)"
This prefix is sometimes written as a separate word.
The pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s are: mbï "I", mo "you (sg.)", lo "he, she, it", ë "we", âla "you (pl.)", âla "they". Verbs take a prefix a- if not preceded by a pronoun; thus mo yeke "you are", but Bêafrîka ayeke "Central Africa is". Particularly useful verbs include yeke "be", bara "greet" (> bara o "hi!"), hînga "know". Possessives and appositives are formed with the word tî "of": ködörö tî mbï "my country", yângâ tî sängö "Sango language". Another common preposition is na, covering a variety of locative, dative, and instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
functions.
Learning Sango
Being a vehicular language, Sango is considered unusually easy to learn; according to Samarin, "with application a student ought to be able to speak the language in about three months." However, reaching true fluency takes much longer, as with any language.For English-speakers there are two main difficulties. First, one must remember not to split double-consonants. The place name Bambari
Bambari
Bambari is a town in the Central African Republic, lying on the Ouaka River. It has a population of 41,356 and is the capital of Ouaka prefecture...
, for example, must be pronounced ba-mba-ri and not bam-ba-ri. Second, as with any tonal language, one must learn not to vary the tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
according to the context. For example, if one pronounces a question with a rising tone as in English, one may inadvertently be saying an entirely different and inappropriate Sango word at the end of the sentence.
External links
Interactive and intelligent French Sango dictionary (by Jolome DAGBO) Test your level in Sango (by Jolome DAGBO)- Online Sango English French Dictionary
- Sangonet.com
- Established French loanwords in Sango
- Ethnologue report on Sango
- A site in Sango - Yângâ tî Sangho tî Bêafrîka
- Sango lessons in French
- Sango computer terminology
- PanAfrican L10n page on Sango
- Kasahorow On-line Sango-English/English-Sango dictionary (Bakarî Sängö)
- Resources in and about the Sango language