Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 5, 2026

Kongo languages

The Kongo languages are a clade of Bantu languages, coded Zone H.10 in Guthrie's classification, that are spoken by the Bakongo:Beembe, Ndingi, Kunyi, Mboka, Kongo, Western Kongo, Laari (Laadi), Vili, Yombe, Suundi

Last revised
Jun 5, 2026
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≈ 1 min
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Wikipedia ↗
Kongo
Kikongo
Linguistic classificationNiger–Congo?
Language codes
Glottologkiko1235
Map of the area where Kongo and Kituba as the lingua franca are spoken.

The Kongo languages are a clade of Bantu languages, coded Zone H.10 in Guthrie's classification, that are spoken by the Bakongo:

Beembe (Pangwa, Doondo, Kamba, Gangala), Ndingi, Kunyi, Mboka, Kongo, Western Kongo, Laari (Laadi), Vili, Yombe, Suundi

Languages

Glottolog, based on Koen Bostoen (2018, 2019),123 classifies two dozen languages of the Kongo language cluster as follows:


These are closest to Mbuun, Ngongo and Nsong-Mpiin.4

References

References

  1. Bostoen, Koen; de Schryver, Gilles-Maurice (2018). "Seventeenth-century Kikongo is not the ancestor of present-day Kikongo". In Bostoen, Koen; Brinkman, Inge (eds.). The Kongo kingdom: the origins, dynamics and cosmopolitan culture of an African polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–102.
  2. Bostoen, Koen; de Schryver, Gilles-Maurice (2018). "Langues et évolution linguistique dans le royaume et l'aire kongo". In Clist, Bernard-Olivier; de Maret, Pierre; Bostoen, Koen (eds.). Une archéologie des provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 51–55.
  3. Pacchiarotti, Sara; Chousou-Polydouri, Natalia; Bostoen, Koen (2019). "Untangling the West-Coastal Bantu mess: identification, geography and phylogeny of the Bantu B50-80 languages". Africana Linguistica. 21: 87–162.
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "KLC Extended". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.