Northwest Gbaya language

Northwest Gbaya
Native to	Cameroon, Central African Republic
Native speakers	(65,000 in Cameroon cited 1980)[1] 200,000 in CAR (1996), 2,000 in Congo (1993)
Language family	Niger–Congo Atlantic–Congo Savannas Gbaya Western Northwest Gbaya
Dialects	Kàrà Làì (3rd variety)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gya
Glottolog	nort2775[2]

Northwest Gbaya is a Gbaya language spoken across a broad expanse of Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The principal variety is Kara (Kàrà, Gbaya Kara), a name shared with several neighboring languages; Lay (Làì) is restricted to a small area north of Mbodomo, with a third between it and Toongo that is not named in Moñino (2010), but is influenced by the Gbaya languages to the south.

For male initiation rites, the Gbaya Kara use a language called La'bi.

References

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