"Mongo is the name most currently used for a whole cluster of more or less closely related dialects. Originally the term was applied only to the northern section, with Nkundo being restricted to the southern part (between the equator and the River Kasai.) Nowadays, the tendency is to use the term (Lo-)Mongo for the whole ethnic/linguistic group, reserving Nkundo for the sections of the western part" (Hulstaert, personal communication, 1986). Mongo and Nkundo belong to the Bongo Group (Guthrie C61) of Bantu and are spoken in northwestern Zaire and around Mbandaka.
Alexandre (1981) suggests approximately 500,000 speakers, while Voegelin and Voegelin (1977) note more than 217,000 presumably first-language) speakers. Hulstaert suggests 500,000 for Mongo and approximately two million for the whole group. Grimes (1996) gives figures of 400,000 and 4,860,000 respectively.
Hulstaert reports that "Mongo is used both as a local language by the Western-Central dialect cluster defined above and as a lingua franca by the other dialect speakers in the basins of Lulonga, Tshuapa, and their affluents. It is also spoken as a second language by the limitroph Ngombe between the rivers Ruki and Ikelemba."
Different orthographies have been developed by the Catholic and Protestant missions. To our knowledge, neither has received official status.
Only one set of materials appears to be required, based on the western dialects, which serve as the lingua franca.
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