Umbundu is the most widely spoken Bantu language in Angola, primarily used by the Ovimbundu people in the central highlands. As a Bantu language, Umbundu shares a common linguistic ancestry with hundreds of languages across central and southern Africa. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Umbundu are Kimbundu, Luba-Katanga, Luba-Kasai, Chokwe, and Chichewa.
- Kimbundu (44.6)
Kimbundu is spoken in the northwestern part of Angola, including the capital Luanda. While Kimbundu and Umbundu are distinct languages, they share a high degree of mutual intelligibility and many cognates due to their geographic proximity and shared Bantu heritage, though pronunciation and vocabulary can vary. - Luba – Katanga (37.4)
Spoken in southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo , Luba-Katanga, also known as Kiluba, is another Bantu language closely related to Umbundu. Both languages have similar syntactic structures and vocabulary. While Luba-Katanga is spoken farther afield, historical migrations and cultural exchanges have preserved many linguistic parallels. - Luba – Kasai (33.2)
Luba-Kasai, or Tshiluba, is another major Bantu language spoken in south-central DRC. Though more distant geographically than Kimbundu, Tshiluba remains structurally similar to Umbundu. Tshiluba speakers may recognize common roots and affixes found in Umbundu vocabulary and grammar. - Chokwe (31.5)
Chokwe is spoken across eastern Angola and parts of the DRC and Zambia. It is both a regional lingua franca and a close linguistic cousin of Umbundu. These languages share many phonetic traits, such as vowel harmony and consonant combinations. Additionally, both languages use similar prefixes to indicate noun classes and verb tenses. - Chichewa (30.7)
Chichewa, also known simply as Chewa, is predominantly spoken in Malawi and also in parts of Zambia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. While it may lie farther east of Angola, it is still part of the Bantu language family, demonstrating how vast the Bantu linguistic spread is.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)