Baka language


Baka is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close to the Aka, the two together called the Mbenga, but the languages are not related, apart from some vocabulary dealing with the forest economy, which suggests the Aka may have shifted to Bantu, probably 15000 people have shifted.
Some 30% of Baka vocabulary is not Ubangian. Much of this concerns a specialised forest economy, such as words for edible plants, medicinal plants, and honey collecting, and has been posited as the remnant of an ancestral Pygmy language which has otherwise vanished. However, apart from some words shared with the Aka, there is no evidence for a wider linguistic affiliation with any of the other Pygmy peoples.
It is unclear if Gundi, Ganzi and Massa, are mutually intelligible with Baka proper. Most Massa have shifted to Gundi, which is spoken by 9,000 people.
The Ngombe tribe speaks Gundi. It may have been confused in the literature with the Ngombe population speaking the Bangandu language.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels