Whilst the language is known as Rangi in English and Kirangi in the dominant Swahili spoken throughout the African Great Lakes, the self-referent term is Kilaangi.
However, some dialectal variation is also found between the varieties spoken in the main town of Kondoa, as well as in the surrounding villages of Bereko, Bukulu, Isabe, Humai, Kwadinu, Kolo, Choka, Gubali, Nkuku, Bicha, Kingale, Kelema, Paranga, Kidoka, Haubi and Mondo.
Rangi has a seven-vowel system, with a single low vowel and phonemically contrasting front-back pairs at three heights.
The name is usually pronounced with an R, but the endonym is an L: Pendant longtemps j'ai cru que la langue que j'étudiais s'appelait le kɪrangi, car lorsque les locuteurs parlent en anglais, ou à un étranger de manière générale, ils se servent de la forme swahili.
Ce n'est que lorsqu'ils parlent en langi qu'ils appellent leur langue kɪlangi.
(For a long time I thought that the language which I was studying was called Kɪrangi, because when speakers spoke in English, or in general to a foreigner, they made do with the Swahili form.