| Languages Of Gabon |
Article Index for Languages Of |
Website Links For Languages |
Information AboutLanguages Of Gabon |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LANGUAGES OF GABON | |
| languages of gabonlanguages of gabon | |
| languages of africa | |
| gabon | |
| gabonese society | |
| gabonese culture | |
|
A small percentage, several thousand in number, have had secondary or higher education and are extremely fluent in French. The indigenous languages are all Bantu Languages , estimated to have come to Gabon about 2,000 years ago, and differentiated into about 40 languages. They are generally spoken but not written; while missionaries from the United States and France developed transcriptions for a number of languages based on the Latin Alphabet starting in the 1840s , and translated the Bible into several of them, French colonial policy officially promoted the study of French and discouraged African languages. The languages continue to be transmitted through family and clan, and individuals in cities and other areas where multiple peoples come in contact may learn several Bantu languages. The Gabonese government sponsored research on the Bantu languages starting in the 1970s , and may possibly use some of them in instruction. The three largest languages are Fang , Mbere , and Sira (Eshira), each with about 25-30% of the speakers. The remainder of the languages are single-digit percentages, and some have only a few thousand speakers. LANGUAGES
EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|