lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

Ongamo, or Ngas, is a probably 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.

Ngas
Ongamo
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Ngasa people
Native speakers	probably extinct (2012)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Saharan Eastern Nilotic Ateker-Lotuko–Maa Lotuko–Maa Ongamo-Maa Ngas
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nsg
Glottolog	ngas1238
ELP	Ngasa

History

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]

References

Further reading

• Sommer, Gabriele (1992) 'A Survey on Language Death in Africa', in Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 301–417.

External links

Ngasa profile on the Endangered Languages Project

На других языках

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- [en] Ngasa language

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[fr] Ongamo

L'ongamo (ou ngasa) est une langue nilo-saharienne de la branche des langues nilotiques parlée dans en Tanzanie, à l'extrême Nord-Est du Kilimandjaro[2].

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