World Language Map

Where is Benga spoken?

Benga is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. The outlined area on the map shows where.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Benga is spoken

Benga is spoken in 3 countries: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Country
Cameroon
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon

On the map, Benga is drawn as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007. The area was digitised by the Glottography project (doi:10.5281/zenodo.18613195), and the atlas is cited on the data sources page. Language areas are generalisations, and cities and borderlands are multilingual, so the outline does not mean that everyone inside it speaks Benga.

How many people speak Benga?

Wikidata holds no speaker count for this language.

Status: Moribund. Glottolog lists it as moribund: the youngest speakers are middle-aged or older, and children are no longer learning it.

Where Benga sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Benga as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Atlantic-Congo
  2. Volta-Congo
  3. Benue-Congo
  4. Bantoid
  5. Southern Bantoid
  6. Narrow Bantu
  7. Bantu A-B10-B20-B30
  8. Sawabantu
  9. Bengaic
  10. Benga

Related languages

Other languages in the Bengaic group:

More about Benga

Codes: ISO 639-3 bng, Glottolog beng1282. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Benga

Where is Benga spoken?

Benga is spoken in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.

Which language family is Benga in?

Glottolog places Benga in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, Bantu A-B10-B20-B30, Sawabantu and Bengaic.

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