Kwanja language

Kwanja
Konja
Native to Cameroon
Native speakers
10,000 (2011)[1]
Dialects
  • Njanga
Language codes
ISO 639-3 knp
Glottolog konj1252[2]

Kwanja (Konja) is a Mambiloid language of Cameroon. Njanga dialect is distinct. The Kwanja language is considered to be a non-Bantoid Bantu language, in that it has some linguistic characteristics that set it apart from Bantu languages, while still belonging to the class of Bantu languages.

Kwanja is also the name of the tribe, the Kwanja people, located in central Cameroon. There are about 15,000 Kwanjas altogether, with there being two primary dialects of the Kwanja language, Sundani and Ndungani. The Kwanja have a published dictionary, a New Testament, booklets of their fables, and several other books in Kwanja. From an anthropological perspective, the Kwanja people have some of the most complex culturally prescribed family relationships of any single people group. For instance, in the Kwanja culture the way a man is supposed to treat their sister's brother-in-law who is younger than their sister is completely different from how they are supposed to treat their younger cousin.

References

  1. Kwanja at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Konja". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.


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