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Kimbundu
North Mbundu
Native to	Angola
Region	Luanda Province, Bengo Province, Malanje Province
Ethnicity	Ambundu
Native speakers	1.7 million (2015)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Atlantic–Congo Benue–Congo Bantoid Southern Bantoid Bantu (Zone H) Kimbundu languages (H.20) Kimbundu
Dialects	Kimbundu proper (Ngola) Mbamba (Njinga)
Official status
Official language in	Angola ("National language")
Language codes
ISO 639-2	kmb
ISO 639-3	kmb
Glottolog	kimb1241
Guthrie code	H.21

Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola.

Its speakers are concentrated in the north-west of the country, notably in the Luanda, Bengo, Malanje and the Cuanza Norte provinces. It is spoken by the Ambundu.

Phonology

Consonants

Allophones:

and are allophones of /p/ and /b/, respectively, before /a/ and /u/. The phoneme /l/ is phonetically a flap , a voiced plosive or its palatalized version when before the front high vowel /i/. In the same way, the alveolars /s/, /z/ and /n/ are palatalized to , and , respectively, before . There may be an epenthesis of after /ŋ/ in word medial positions, thus creating a phonetic cluster in a process of fortition.

There is long distance nasal harmony, in which /l/ is realized as if the previous morphemes contain /m/ or /n/, but not prenasalized stops.

Vowels

There are two contrasting tones: a high (á) and a low tone (à). There is also a downstep in cases of tonal sandhi.

Vowel harmony

There is vowel harmony in two groups (the high vowels /i, u/ and the mid and low vowels /e, o, a/) that applies only for verbal morphology. In some morphemes, vowels may be consistently deleted to avoid a hiatus.

Kimbundu alphabet

Consonants

B D F G H J K L M N P S T V W X Y Z

Vowels

A E I O U

Loans

European Portuguese

There is a small number of words of Kimbundu origin and many of those are indirect loans, borrowed via Angolan Portuguese.

The examples generally understood by most or all speakers of Angolan and European Portuguese include

bué (pronounced [bwɛ], "very, a lot"),

cota ([ˈkɔtɐ], "old person")

mambo ([ˈmɐ̃bu])

Conjugation

Conjugating the verb to be (kuala; also kukala in Kimbundu) in the present:

Conjugating the verb to have (kuala ni; also kukala ni in Kimbundu) in the present :

References

1. Kimbundu at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Jouni Filip Maho, 2009. New Updated Guthrie List Online
3. A language name 'mbundu' was used by Guthrie in his 1948 classification, for his group R10 (the language is Umbundu, the Ovimbundu's language. Kimbundu is found as Ndongo-H21). This has become obsolete: In his 1971 classification, the group H20 is called the Kimbundu group, and the R10 group is called Umbundu group. See: M. Guthrie, The Classification of the Bantu Languages (OUP, 1948), and M. Guthrie, Comparative Bantu, Vol 2 (Gregg Press, 1971). Glottolog classifies Kimbundu in a Mbundu group, which is in the Northern Njila group, and Umbundu (the Ovimbundu's language) in the Kunene group, which is itself in the Southern Njila group. see the Glottolog entry
4. "Narrow Bantu "H"". International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. 2003-01-01. p. 115. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195139778.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-513977-8.
5. Ambundu is the short form for Akwa Mbundu, where 'Akwa' means 'from', or 'of', or more originally 'originally from' and 'belonging to'. In Kimbundu language, the particle Akwa is shortened into simply A, so that instead of Akwa Mbndu, it becomes Ambundu; similarly the term Akwa Ngola becomes ANgola, then Angola. Ngola was the title for kings in the historic Northern Angolan kingdom, before the Portuguese invasion.
6. Xavier, Francisco da Silva (2010). Fonologia segmental e supra-segmental do Quimbundo: variedades de Luanda, Bengo, Quanza Norte e Malange (Ph.D. thesis) (in Portuguese). University of São Paulo. doi:10.11606/t.8.2010.tde-20102010-091425.
7. Omniglot - Kimbundu
8. S.A, Priberam Informática. "bué". Dicionário Priberam.
9. S.A, Priberam Informática. "Cota". Dicionário Priberam.
10. "A língua kimbundu". Ciberduvidas da lingua portuguesa (in Portuguese). Retrieved 30 November 2020.

External links

• The art of the language of Angola, author Father Pedro Dias, published in 1697
• Emuseum article on Kimbundu
• PanAfrican L10n page on Kimbundu
• Kimbundu people
• Ethnic groups of Angola

• Northern Mbundu
• Kimbundu languages
• Languages of Angola