Ubangian languages

Infobox Language family
name=Ubangian
region=Centered on the Central African Republic
familycolor=Niger-Congo
fam2=Atlantic-Congo
fam3=Savannas
child1=Gbaya
child2=Zande
child3=Banda
child4=Ngbandi
child5=Sere
child6=Ngbaka-Mba

The Ubangian languages form a fairly close-knit language family centered on the Central African Republic but extending into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and with one branch in Sudan. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango.

Although the family is clear-cut, and consists of half a dozen coherent branches, the interrelationships of these branches are not so straightforward. Williamson & Blench (2000) have the following:

*Gbaya (incl. Ngbaka in DRC, 1 million)
*Zande (incl. Zande in DRC, 1 million)
*other:
**Banda
**Ngbandi (the Ngbandi creole Sango has 2 million first- and second-language speakers)
**Sere–Mba
***Sere
***Ngbaka-Mba
****Ngbaka (note the principal Gbaya language is also called Ngbaka)
****Mba

Ethnologue agrees on the Sere–Ngbaka-Mba cluster, and calls Gbaya "Gbaya-Manza-Ngbaka".

References

*Williamson, Kay & Blench, Roger (2000) 'Niger-Congo', in Heine, Bernd & Nurse, Derek (eds.) "African languages: an introduction", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.