World Language Map

Where is Bwisi spoken?

Bwisi is an Atlantic-Congo language, spoken in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. 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 Bwisi is spoken

Bwisi is spoken in 2 countries: Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.

Country
Gabon
Republic of the Congo

On the map, Bwisi 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 Bwisi.

How many people speak Bwisi?

Wikidata holds no speaker count for this language.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Bwisi sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Bwisi 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. Central-Western Bantu
  8. West-Coastal Bantu
  9. Nzadic
  10. Lweric
  11. Dingic
  12. Loange-Atlantic
  13. KLC Extended
  14. Kikongo Language Cluster
  15. Nuclear KLC
  16. Kikongoic
  17. Kambakunyic Kikongo
  18. Kilaadic Kikongo
  19. Central-Southern Kikongo
  20. West Kikongo
  21. Vilic
  22. Lumbuic
  23. Lumbu-Bwisi
  24. Bwisi

Related languages

Other languages in the Lumbu-Bwisi group:

More about Bwisi

Codes: ISO 639-3 bwz, Glottolog bwis1242. Glottolog macroarea: Africa.

Questions about Bwisi

Where is Bwisi spoken?

Bwisi is spoken in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. On the map it is shown as an area from Asher and Moseley 2007.

Which language family is Bwisi in?

Glottolog places Bwisi in the Atlantic-Congo family, in the branch Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo, Bantoid, Southern Bantoid, Narrow Bantu, Central-Western Bantu, West-Coastal Bantu, Nzadic, Lweric, Dingic, Loange-Atlantic, KLC Extended, Kikongo Language Cluster, Nuclear KLC, Kikongoic, Kambakunyic Kikongo, Kilaadic Kikongo, Central-Southern Kikongo, West Kikongo, Vilic, Lumbuic and Lumbu-Bwisi.

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