The Bangi language, or Bobangi, is a relative and main lexical source of Lingala spoken in central Africa.
Dialects of the language are spoken on both sides of the Ubangi and the Congo rivers.
As the Bobangi people came to dominate the slave trade along the upper Congo River in the late 18th century, the Bangi language was used to facilitate trade between different ethnic groups in the region.
Linguist John Whitehead claimed that the Moye, Likuba, Bonga, Mpama, Lusakani, and Bangala (peuple) [fr] peoples all used Bangi for intercommunication in the 1890s.
[7] However, the Bobangi dominance over trade was ended by Europeans in the late 19th century when colonial powers pushed local indigenous groups out of the profitable trade.