the Central Sudanic language Lese. Population: 10,000? The Asoa speak their own Central Sudanic language (Asoa), related to Mangbetu, the language of one of their patrons. Population: 10,000? The Kango (a.k.a. Sua) speak the Bantu language Bila. Population: 26,000? Twa The various Twa populations all speak Bantu languages. The Nsua of Uganda speak Bantu. Population: 1,000 The Great Lakes Twa of the Great Lakes (Rwanda, Burundi, eastern D.R. Congo, southern Uganda) speak Rundi and Kiga. Population: 10,000 The Mongo Twa or Ntomba Twa (Cwa ) of Lake Tumba and Lake Mai-Ndombe of western D.R. Congo, speak several varieties of Mongo (Konda, Ntomba, and Lia), which are either divergent dialects or closely related languages. Population: 14,000 The Kasai Twa or Kuba Twa (Cwa) of Kasai (central D.R. Congo) speak Bushong. The Mbote Twa (Bambote) northwest of Lake Tanganyika speak a D20 language. The Upemba Twa or Luba Twa (Cwa) of the Upemba Depression speak Luba-Katanga, Hemba, Songe, and Taabwa. The Bangweulu Twa of Bangweulu Swamps, Zambia, speak Bemba. The Lukanga Twa of the Lukanga Swamp, Zambia, speak Lenje. The Kafwe Twa of the Kafue Flats, Zambia, speak Tonga. The Twa of Angola live among the Ngambwe, Havakona, Zimba and Himba, and presumably speak their languages. Physically, these southern Twa do not differ from their Bantu neighbors, but have a similar subservient position to their agricultural neighbors as the forest Pygmies. They may be remnant Khoisan populations; the Ila, Tonga, and Lenje of Zambia, and the Chewa of Malawi, for example, believe them to be aboriginal peoples, and trace sacred places to them, but Blench suggests that they may have instead migrated from the forest with the Bantu, and were later conflated with aboriginal populations in legend. Bibliography The most complete account of Pygmy languages is found in Serge Bahuchet (1993) Histoire d'une civilisation forestière, volume 2. Notes References Serge Bahuchet, 2006. "Languages of the African Rainforest « Pygmy » Hunter-Gatherers: Language Shifts without Cultural Admixture." In Historical linguistics and hunter-gatherers populations in global perspective. Leipzig. Hewlett & Fancher, 2011. "Central African Hunter-Gatherer Research Traditions". In Cummings, Jordan, & Zvelebil, eds, Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers. Oxford University Press African Pygmies Classification of African languages