Like most other countries in Africa, the Central African Republic is a hotspot of linguistic diversity, with an estimated 72 languages found throughout the country. Of course, when a country has this many indigenous languages, it’s necessary for the population to learn common languages—lingua francas—to communicate with one another. In the Central African Republic, that role is taken by French, spoken by around 28% of the population, and Sango, spoken by a whopping 92% of all citizens.
Sango only has around 620,000 native speakers, but the number is growing, especially in the capital of Bangui, where Sango is the native language of most children. But as the Central African Republic’s primary lingua franca, Sango also boasts several million second-language speakers. French is generally used in more formal contexts, but Sango is used widely throughout the country, and its prominence is growing. But translation services dedicated to Sango are uncommon—so we at TranslationServices.com have put together our own Sango translation services.
Our rates for Sango translation services are available for anyone who requests a free quote!
Sango: half French, half Ngbandi, all Central African
While Sango speakers are concentrated in the Central African Republic, you’ll also find it used in the neighboring nations of Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s considered a creole language, which is a language that arises from the mingling of different ethnic groups in need of a common language. When such a language has no native speakers, it’s called a pidgin, but once it’s learned by some natively, it becomes a creole. Sango is a creole based on the Bantu language of Ngbandi, interspersed with heavy French influence. While the basic structure and vocabulary of Sango is largely Ngbandi-based, technical vocabulary is usually derived from French.
Sango is considered remarkably easy to learn, but like any language, it takes time to achieve a high level of fluency. It’s an isolating language, which means it exhibits minimal inflection, and uses a subject-verb-object word order, like in English. Plural nouns are marked by â-, which is not a prefix but a proclitic—meaning that if a noun is proceeded by, for example, an adjective, â- attaches to the adjective and not the noun. Verbs usually take the prefix a-, except when the subject is a pronoun. Such features aren’t hard to get used to, but encapsulating all the subtle nuances in a Sango translation can be tricky—which is why we’ve hired skilled native speakers for our Sango translation team.
If you need Sango translation services, we’re here for you.
Are you in need of high-quality Sango translation services? Our mission is to offer the most robust, most flexible Sango translation team we can, allowing you to specify that you want a translator from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Chad. You can specify the dialect of Sango for your translation, and since we work with translation both to and from Sango, we’re confident that we can help you with your translation needs—whatever they may be.
We’ve hired Sango translators who boast a range of different competencies, so anyone looking for specialized translation in different areas can trust our team. For example, we offer academic translation services for researchers, educators, and others looking for translation in a wide range of disciplines. For business clients, we’re happy to translate everything from business plans and financial reports to white papers and ad copy—for companies in any industry. And for the creatives among our clients, our literary translation team is eager to help you translate your works to or from Sango—whether you’re crafting books, poems, short stories, apps, games, websites, or something else.
We provide top-notch Sango translation services to anyone who needs them. If you’re ready to get started, why not reach out today?