Sango, the lingua franca related to Ngbandi of Adamawa Eastern, is spoken primarily in the Central African Republic, where it is widespread. In addition, one finds some limited usage in border areas of neighboring countries, especially Chad.
Grimes (1996; citing UBS 1995) gives a figure of 4.9 million speakers. Earlier estimates ranged from one million (Voegelin and Voegelin 1977) and 1.5 million (Thomas 1981) to 1.8 million UBS (1982), including first- and second-language speakers.
Sango is a national language of the Central African Republic and has great importance as a commercial language on the Ubangi River throughout this area. Sango is frequently broadcast on radio and television by Radio-Television Centrafricaine.
Since January 28, 1984, the government of the Central African Republic has codified by law the official orthography of Sango based on research by l'Institut National d'Éducation de Formation and l'Institut de Linguistique Appliquée, University of Bangui, Ministry of Education and Educational Reform (Diki-Kidiri, personal communication, 1985). Current orthographic work by these institutions involves elaborating an orthographic dictionary and developing materials using the new official orthography.
Because there are no divergent forms of the lingua franca, one set of learning materials would be sufficient.
Copyright ©2006 African Studies Center. For questions or comments about this site, please contact the Webmaster.