Kimbundu

Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola.

It is the native language of 3.728 million people (as of 2024), with its speakers mostly concentrated in the north-west of the country, notably in the Bengo, Luanda, Icolo e Bengo, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, and the Malanje provinces. It is spoken by the Ambundu.

Phonology

Consonants

Allophones:

[ɸ] and [β] are allophones of /p/ and /b/, respectively, before /a/ and /u/. The phoneme /l/ is phonetically a flap [ɾ], a voiced plosive [d] or its palatalized version [dʲ] when before the front high vowel /i/. In the same way, the alveolars /s/, /z/ and /n/ are palatalized to [ʃ], [ʒ] and [ɲ], respectively, before [i]. There may be an epenthesis of [g] after /ŋ/ in word medial positions, thus creating a phonetic cluster [ŋg] in a process of fortition.

There is long distance nasal harmony, in which /l/ is realized as [n] if the previous morphemes contain /m/ or /n/, but not prenasalized stops.

Vowels

There are two contrasting tones: a high (á) and a low tone (à). There is also a downstep in cases of tonal sandhi.