From July 6 to August 3, Prof. Jean Pierre Donzo carried out linguistic fieldwork within the framework of the CongUbangi project in areas surrounding Lisala and Bumba, two locations in the Mongala province of the DRC. He collected lexical and grammatical data on ten Bantu varieties, namely Budza-liye, Limpesa, Lingbele, Lipoto, Eliele, Elupi-Dando, Ebudza-Bondunga, Egbuta, Ebudza-yamolota, and Ndobo. Some of these are spoken by so-called gens d’eau, that is, linguistically heterogeneous small-scale groups of speakers whose main subsistence activities revolve around swamp forests in the Mongala region.
With Egbuta informants, fishermen of the Itimbiri river, 75 km from Bumba
With Ndobo and Eliele speakers in Ndobo, 40 km downstream of Bumba
On the way to a Bondunga village
With the Bapoto of Ebonda, 12 km from Bumba
With Budza speakers in Lisala