Kimbundu

Spoken in

• Niger - Congo languages Benue - Congo languages Bantoide languages Bantu languages kimbundu

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Kmb

Kmb

Kimbundu (sometimes inadequately called Mbundu or Luanda Mbundu ) is a native to northern Angola Bantu language spoken by the Ambundu, which account for about 25 % of the population of Angola.

Hauptverbereitungsgebiet of Kimbundu are the capital Luanda and the east adjoining provinces of Bengo, Cuanza Norte and Malange and the northern part of the province Cuanza Sul.

The language was written down by Capuchin and Jesuit missionaries. This attributed to the first grammar and translated the Bible and other religious writings into Kimbundu.

This was learned during the colonial period in its area of ​​distribution of a part of the local Portuguese. Many words of Kimbundu found there also in the colloquial Portuguese input, as illustrate about the works of the Angola - Portuguese writer Luandino Vieira. In the 1960erund 1970s were songs on Kimbundu such as Monami and Kamba miami, Angola is common property and were taken by various (mostly mixed-race ) music groups in their repertoire.

However, even in colonial times began Kimbundusprecher the urban middle classes, particularly in Luanda, to prevent their children in the use of Kimbundu, so they learned a better Portuguese. This trend has continued and expanded after independence. In Luanda, therefore, today the vast majority of the population speaks exclusively in everyday Portuguese. This of course depends also to the fact that a large part of the present inhabitants of Luanda immigrated in recent decades from other parts of the country and as a native language does not have Kimbundu, but in the case of the Bakongo the Kikongo or Lingala, in the case of the Ovimbundu of Umbundu etc.. the result is that today's children, adolescents and young adults who are ethnically Ambundu, often Kimbundu neither speak nor understand - often even not when their families come from areas in which exclusively or predominantly Kimbundu is spoken.

At the same time, however, the Angolan government has the Kimbundu, as well as the languages ​​of other numerically significant ethnic groups, to a "national language " ( língua nacional ) explains and tries to its development (especially in vocabulary) and obtain, for example, in the form of regular radio broadcasts on Kimbundu.

From a linguistic perspective, the Kimbundu with the also spoken in Angola Bantu language Umbundu is related, but not so close that more than a fragmentary understanding would be possible between speakers of both languages ​​.