In the invented language, Mangani (meaning "great-ape") is the apes' word for their own kind, although the term is also applied (with modifications) to humans.
The Mangani are described by Burroughs as approximately man-sized, and appear to be a species intermediate between gorillas and chimpanzees.
As described by Burroughs, Mangani are organized in tribal bands ruled by dominant males, or "kings", which subsist by foraging for fruit, grubs, insects, and sometimes meat, in localized territories.
Burroughs portrays the Mangani (and indeed most jungle animals) as susceptible to occasional bouts of madness in which they will lash out violently and unpredictably at other living creatures in their vicinity.
The Mangani language as described by Burroughs is made up largely of grunts and growls representing nouns and various basic concepts.
The depicted language can be thought of as bearing a relationship to the described language similar to that between the movies' euphonious "Tarzan yell" and the books' terrifying "victory cry of the bull ape" from which it supposedly derives; the example in each instance falls short of embodying the description.
The only use of the term Mangani in the television series is as the proper name of an individual ghostly white ape who possesses mystical powers.
[citation needed] The 2016 live-action film The Legend of Tarzan featured the Mangani as a distinct species of gorilla-like ape, describing them as being more aggressive and dangerous compared to gorillas.