Sango Language Page

1 CLASSIFICATION AND WHERE SPOKEN

Sango, the lingua franca related to Ngbandi of Adamawa Eastern, is spoken primarily in the Central African Republic, where it is widespread. In addition, one finds some limited usage in border areas of neighboring countries, especially Chad.

2 NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

Grimes (1996; citing UBS 1995) gives a figure of 4.9 million speakers. Earlier estimates ranged from one million (Voegelin and Voegelin 1977) and 1.5 million (Thomas 1981) to 1.8 million UBS (1982), including first- and second-language speakers.

3 DIALECT SURVEY

Samarin considers the relationship between Sango and Ngbandi to be analogous to that of African Pidgin English, while Thomas (1981) is content to say that Sango and Ngbandi are similar enough to be considered dialects.

4 USAGE

Sango is a national language of the Central African Republic and has great importance as a commercial language on the Ubangi River throughout this area. Sango is frequently broadcast on radio and television by Radio-Television Centrafricaine.

5 ORTHOGRAPHIC STATUS

Since January 28, 1984, the government of the Central African Republic has codified by law the official orthography of Sango based on research by l'Institut National d'Éducation de Formation and l'Institut de Linguistique Appliquée, University of Bangui, Ministry of Education and Educational Reform (Diki-Kidiri, personal communication, 1985). Current orthographic work by these institutions involves elaborating an orthographic dictionary and developing materials using the new official orthography.

6 SETS OF LEARNING MATERIALS

Because there are no divergent forms of the lingua franca, one set of learning materials would be sufficient.

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