Other Names for Mancala
Mancala has hundreds of other names because it’s a family of games, not one game. The ones you’re most likely to have heard are Kalah (the American board-game version, called Kalaha in Germany and Denmark), Bantumi (the version on old Nokia phones), and oware, awale, or warri (West Africa and the Caribbean). Regional versions include bao, omweso, sungka, congkak, and pallanguzhi.
If you’re trying to remember what that game with two rows of pits and a pile of stones was called: it’s mancala, and the version on most American boards is properly named Kalah. “The African stone game” and “the seed game” are descriptions people use for it, not names. Researchers call the whole family sowing games or count-and-capture games, after the way you scoop and drop seeds and then take your opponent’s.
Names for mancala around the world
The table covers the names you’re most likely to meet, what each one refers to, and where to read more on this site. Mancala World, the fan-run wiki that catalogs the family, collects 817 names from 99 countries, so this is a starting list, not a complete one.
| Name | Where it’s used | What it is or means | More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mancala | English, worldwide | The family name, from the Arabic root naqala, “to move” | History |
| Kalah | United States | The standard American ruleset, designed by William Julius Champion Jr. around 1940 | Kalah |
| Kalaha | Germany, Denmark | The German and Danish name for Kalah | Kalah |
| Steinchenspiel | Germany | German for “little stones game,” another German name for Kalaha | Kalah |
| Kalahari | English | A name sometimes used for Kalah | Kalah |
| Bantumi | Nokia phones, from 2000 | A Kalah game built into Nokia handsets such as the 3310 | Kalah |
| Oware | Ghana (Akan) | Tradition links the name to “he/she marries,” from a legend of a couple who played endlessly | Oware |
| Awale, awalé | Côte d’Ivoire, Benin | Oware | Oware |
| Wari | Mali | Oware | Oware |
| Warri | The Caribbean | Oware | Oware |
| Ouri, ouril | Cape Verde | Oware | Oware |
| Awari | English, computer science | The usual English name for oware | Oware |
| Ayo, ayoayo | Nigeria (Yoruba) | Oware’s close relative with relay sowing | Ayo |
| Bao | East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, and neighbors) | Swahili for “board” or “board game”; a four-row game | Bao |
| Omweso | Uganda | Four-row game; the Lango call it coro and the Luo soro | Omweso |
| Igisoro | Rwanda, Burundi | A Rwandan relative of omweso | Variants |
| Sungka | Philippines | Seven-pit relay game played with shells | Sungka |
| Congkak | Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore | Sungka’s Malay cousin; some trace it to old Malay congak, “mental calculation” | Congkak |
| Congklak | Indonesia | Indonesian name for the same game; the word also came to mean the cowrie shells used as seeds | Congkak |
| Dakon | Java, Indonesia | A regional name for the same Southeast Asian game | Congkak |
| Chonka | Sri Lanka | The Sri Lankan name, a cousin of congkak and sungka | Congkak |
| Ohvalhu | Maldives | Valhu means “eight” | Variants |
| Makkhum, maklum | Thailand | “Hole game” | Variants |
| Pallanguzhi, pallankuzhi | Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India | Tamil, from words for pit or hollow (“the pit game”) | Pallanguzhi |
| Alaguli mane | Karnataka, India | The Kannada name for the pallanguzhi-type game | Pallanguzhi |
| Vamana guntalu | Andhra Pradesh, India | The Telugu name for the same game | Pallanguzhi |
| Toguz korgool | Kyrgyzstan | Kyrgyz for “nine sheep droppings”; toguz kumalak in Kazakhstan | Variants |
| Mangala | Turkey | The traditional Turkish mancala game | Variants |
| Gebeta | Ethiopia, Eritrea | A regional mancala name, common in Tigray | History |
| Songo | Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea | A Central African mancala game | Variants |
The names you probably meant
Kalah or Kalaha. If you played “mancala” on a wooden board from a toy store, you almost certainly played Kalah. William Julius Champion Jr. designed it around 1940, and because later publishers sold it under the family name, Americans call it mancala. In Germany and Denmark it’s called Kalaha. The Kalah page has the full story.
Bantumi. If you remember playing mancala on a phone in the early 2000s, this is probably it. Bantumi was a Kalah game preloaded on Nokia phones from 2000, including the Nokia 3310, and it played by Kalah rules. If you liked it, the game on this site plays the same way: stores, extra turns, captures from empty pits.
Oware, awale, wari, warri. One West African game with a name for nearly every country it crossed. It started with the Akan of Ghana, spread along the coast, and crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, where it’s warri. English-language books and computer scientists often call it awari. It plays differently from Kalah: no extra turns, and you capture by making an opponent’s pit total two or three. See oware.
Why one game has so many names
Part of the answer is geography: the family spread across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean, and each language named its own version. The other part is that many names are generic. Bao just means “board” in Swahili. Mancala World notes that names like bao, mangala, and pallanguzhi each get used for several different games, while some different names point to the same game.
So a name alone doesn’t always tell you the rules. Oware and Kalah share a board but play differently; sungka and congkak use different names for nearly the same game. The mancala variants hub sorts the family by how the rules actually differ: board size, sowing style, capture rule, and goal. And if the question is how to say the word itself, the mancala pronunciation guide covers that.