Sango: A Social and Linguistic History (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781556714573)

Sango emerged from colonization but was created by Africans. William Samarin traces how Sango, developing alongside Kituba and Lingala, went from a trade lingua franca along the Ubangi River to become a creole vernacular with more than 2 million speakers. Based on four decades of fieldwork in what is now the Central African Republic, the book examines Sango's linguistic features, its relationship to other pidgins and creoles, its geographically diverse sources, and the historical conditions that shaped it. Linguists, creolists, and historians concerned with the consequences of languages-in-contact will find this an essential work, as will students of the history of the Central African Republic and language-and-colonization.