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Mekambo Song - Ikota (Mahongwe)
Cooking Cassava Leaves - Ikota (Mahongwe)
Another Story of Zambe's Wife - Ikota (Mahongwe)
Ihiako - Ikota (Mahongwe)
The Egg Child - Ikota (Mahongwe)
Lema's Story - Ikota (Mahongwe)

Ikota, also called Kota, is a language spoken by the Bakota people, some 40-50,000 of whom live along the border that runs between Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. In Gabon, most inhabit the provinces of Ogooué-Ivindo and Haut-Ogooué, while in the Congo most are in the north of the country, in the Cuvette-Ouest department near Kelle and Mbomo, or in the southeast. ELA has focused on the Mahongwé variety.

Affiliation

Ikota is classified by linguists as a Northwest Bantu language of zone B, within Africa’s massive Niger-Congo language family. Several dialects are mentioned in the literature, including Ndambomo, Ikota-la-hua; Sake, Menzambi, Bougom, and Mahongwé, although the latter is understood by some (e.g. Jacquot 1978, Sima Mve 1990) to be a distinct language. The Mahongwé variety is primarily spoken, probably by a few thousand people at most, in the Mékambo area of Gabon and also between Makokou and Okondja in Gabon’s Haut-Ogooué province. Outsiders may know about the famous masks made by Mahongwé artists.

Endangerment

Ikota maintains an important position in the more remote regions of the language area but its future is far from certain in a time when most Gabonese languages are rapidly losing ground to French. Younger speakers in all areas have begun shifting to French and certain varieties, such as Mahongwé, are immediately endangered. Our Ikota collaborator Safiyatou Dvorak reports that most of Gabon’s languages are undergoing heavy lexical replacement, with French words replacing native words. Although this is not traditionally discussed under the heading of language endangerment, it is of concern to speakers.