Mba languages
title: "Mba languages" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mba-languages", "ubangian-languages"] topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mba_languages" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::data[format=table title="Infobox language family"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Mba |
| region | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| familycolor | Niger-Congo |
| fam1 | Ubangian |
| fam2 | Seri–Mba |
| fam3 | Ngbaka–Mba |
| glotto | mbai1246 |
| glottorefname | Mbaic |
| :: |
|name=Mba |region=Democratic Republic of the Congo |familycolor=Niger-Congo |fam1=Ubangian |fam2=Seri–Mba |fam3=Ngbaka–Mba |glotto=mbai1246 |glottorefname=Mbaic
The four Mba languages form a small family of Ubangian languages scattered across the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The languages are,
The most populous is Mba itself, with about 40,000 speakers. Ma is the most divergent. The four Mba languages are not particularly closely related to each other and display considerable lexical diversity.
Language contact
The Mba languages have received significant influences from Bantu to the south, and from Zande languages to the north. For example, some Mba languages such as Ndunga have borrowed many noun prefixes from nearby Bantu languages (Pasch 1986, 1987, 1988).
Internal classification
Mba internal classification according to Pasch (1986):
;Mba
References
References
- Güldemann, Tom. (2018). "The Languages and Linguistics of Africa". De Gruyter Mouton.
- Pasch, Helma. (1986). "Die Mba-Sprachen: Die Nominalklassensysteme und die genetische Gliederung einer Gruppe von Ubangi-Sprachen". Rüdiger Köppe.
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