Ngasa language

Ngas
Ongamo
Native to	Tanzania
Ethnicity	Ngas people
Native speakers	probably extinct (2012)[1]
Language family	Nilo-Saharan? Eastern Saharan Eastern Nilotic Lotuxo–Teso Lotuxo–Maa Maa Ngas
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nsg
Glottolog	ngas1238[2]

Ongamo, or Ngas, is probably extinct Eastern Nilotic language of Tanzania. It is closely related to the Maa languages, but more distantly than they are to each other. Ongamo has 60% of lexical similarity with Maasai, Samburu, and Camus. Speakers have shifted to Chagga, a dominant regional Bantu language.

History

An expansion of Ngas speakers onto the plains north of Mount Kilimanjaro occurred in the 12th century. The language was mutually intelligible with Proto-Maasai during that period. Vocabulary retention from this time attests to the cultivation of sorghum and elusine by the Ngas. Subsequent immigration of Bantu-speaking Chagga over the next five centuries considerably reduced the extent and viability of the Ngasa language.^[3]

References

1. Ngas at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Ngasa". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Leeman, Bernard and informants. (1994). 'Ongamoi (KiNgassa): a Nilotic remnant of Kilimanjaro'. Cymru UK: Cyhoeddwr Joseph Biddulph Publisher. 20pp.

Further reading

• Sommer, Gabriele (1992) 'A Survey on Language Death in Africa', in Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 301–417.

External links

Ngasa profile on the Endangered Languages Project