Fang people

NOTOC The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon. Representing about 85% of the total population of Equatorial Guinea, concentrated in the Río Muni region, the Fang people are its largest ethnic group. The Fang are also the largest ethnic group in Gabon, making up about a quarter of the population. The Fang people speak the Fang language, also known as Pahouin or Pamue or Pangwe. The language is a Northwest Bantu language belonging to the Niger-Congo family of languages. The Fang language is similar and intelligible with languages spoken by Beti-Pahuin peoples, namely the Beti people to their north and the Bulu people in central. Their largest presence is in the southern regions, up to the Ogooué River estuary where anthropologists refer them also as "Fang proper". They have preserved their history largely through a musical oral tradition. Many Fang people are fluent in Spanish, French, German and English, a tradition of second language they developed during the Spanish colonial rule in Equatorial Guinea, the French colonial rule in Gabon and the German-later-French colonial rule in Cameroon. The Fang people are relatively recent migrants into the Equatorial Guinea, and many of them moved from central Cameroon in the 19th century. Early ethnologists conjectured them to be Nilotic peoples from the upper Nile area. The people of Modern-day Gabon, and the Fang themselves have a commonly shared belief that the Fang, as well as their language, are not Bantu. Scholars such as Cheikh Anta Diop support this claim. Opponents of the claim typically rely on linguistic studies. Combination of evidence now places them to be of Bantu origins who began moving back into Africa around the seventh or eighth century possibly because of invasions from the north and the wars of sub-Saharan Africa. Their migration may be related to an attempt to escape the violence of slave raiding by the Hausa people, but this theory has been contested.