Baka (language)
| Baka | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Cameroon Gabon |
|
| speaker | 43,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
bkc |
|
The Baka (also called Be-bayaga , Be-bayaka and Bibaya de L'est ) is one of the three closely related Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon .
The peoples are ethnically closely related to the Aka Pygmies, the two collectively called Mbenga ( Bambemga ), but the languages are not related except for the vocabulary dealing with forestry - which suggests the Aka to the Bantu of a language like Baka.
About 30% of the Baka vocabulary is non-Ubangian. Most of it involves specialized forestry , such as words like edible plants, medicinal plants, and honey-gathering, which have been postulated as holdovers of an ancient, otherwise vanished, Pygmy language. However, apart from a few words also used by the Aka, there is no evidence of further linguistic relationships with any other pygmy peoples.
Movies
- Languages struggling to survive (1/6) , Arte, France, 2013
Web links
- Map of Baka language from the LL_Map Project
- Information on Baka language from the MultiTree Project
- Baka Pygmies Culture and photos, with soundscapes of Baka camps in the rainforest
Individual evidence
- ↑ Serge Bahuchet, 1993, History of the inhabitants of the central African rain forest: perspectives from comparative linguistics. In CM Hladik, ed., Tropical forests, people, and food: Biocultural interactions and applications to development. Paris: Unesco / Parthenon.
- ↑ Blench (in press) (PDF; 225 kB)