Lingala (or Ngala, Lingala: ) is a Bantu language spoken in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the northern half of the Republic of the Congo, in their capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, and to a lesser degree as a trade language because of emigration in neighbouring Angola or Central African Republic. Lingala has 20 million native speakers and about another 20 million second-language speakers, for an approximate total of 40 million speakers. A significant portion of both Congolese diasporas speaks Lingala in their countries of immigration like Belgium, France or the United States.
History Before 1880, Bobangi was an important trade language on the western sections of the Congo River, between Stanley Pool (Kinshasa) and the confluence of the Congo and Ubangi rivers (Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo). When the first Europeans and their West- and East-African troops started founding state posts for the Belgian king along this river section in the early 1880s, they noticed the widespread use and prestige of Bobangi. They attempted to learn it, but only cared to acquire an imperfect knowledge of it, a process that gave rise to a new, strongly restructured variety, called "the trade language", "the language of the river", or "Bobangi-pidgin", among other names.For linguistic sources, see In 1884, Europeans introduced this restructured variety of Bobangi in the state post Bangala Station to communicate with local Congolese, some of whom had second-language knowledge of original Bobangi, and with the Congolese from more remote areas whom missionaries and colonials had been relocating to the station by force. The language of the river was therefore soon renamed "Bangala", a label the Europeans had since 1876 also been using as a convenient, but erroneous and non-original ethnic name for all Congolese of that region.
Around 1901–2, CICM missionaries started a project to "purify" the Bangala language by cleansing it from the "impure", pidginlike features it had acquired when it emerged out of Bobangi in the early 1880s.
Around and shortly after 1901, a number of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries working in the western and northern Congo Free State, independently of one another but in strikingly parallel terms, judged that Bangala as it had developed out of Bobangi was too "pidgin like", "too poor" a language to function as a proper means of education and evangelization. Each of them set out on a program of massive corpus planning, aimed at actively "correcting" and "enlarging" Bangala from above [...]. One of them was the Catholic missionary Egide De Boeck of the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM, commonly known as "the Missionaries of Scheut" or "Scheutists"), who arrived in Bangala Station – Nouvelle Anvers in 1901. Another one was the Protestant missionary Walter H. Stapleton [...], and a third one the Catholic Léon Derikx of the Premonstratensian Fathers [...]. By 1915, De Boeck's endeavors had proven to be more influential than Stapleton's, whose language creative suggestions, as the Protestant missionaries' conference of 1911 admitted, had never been truly implemented [...]. Under the dominance of De Boeck's work, Derikx's discontinued his after less than 10 years.
Lingala's importance as a vernacular has since grown with the size and importance of its main centers of use, Kinshasa and Brazzaville; with its use as the lingua franca of the armed forces; and with the popularity of soukous music.
Name At first the language the European pioneers and their African troops had forged out of Bobangi was called "the river language", "the trade language", and other volatile names. Beginning in 1884, it was called "Bangala", due to its introduction in Bangala Station. After 1901, Catholic missionaries of CICM, also called the Congregation of Scheutists, proposed to rename the language "Lingala". It took some decades for this to be generally accepted both by colonials and the Congolese. The name Lingala first appears in writing in a 1901-2 publication by the CICM missionary Égide De Boeck. This name change was accepted in western and northwestern Congo, and in other countries where the language was spoken, but not in northeastern Congo, where the variety of the language spoken locally is still called Bangala.
Bobangi–Lingala relationship Linguistically, Lingala is a dialect or variant of Bobangi, a popular or commercial Bobangi, that is, a Bobangi lingua franca spoken by non-native speakers. Lingala has also been referred to by the following names: "bad Bobangi", "Sabir of Bobangi", "deformed and mixed Bobangi", "Bobangi of treaties", "patois of Bobangi and Kilolo", and "the new language of the Bobangi".
Characteristics and usage Lingala is a Bantu language of Central Africa with roots in the Bobangi language, which provided most of its lexicon and grammar. In its basic vocabulary, Lingala also borrows from other languages, such as Kikongo varieties, Ubangian languages, Swahili, French, Portuguese, English, and various African languages (note local and foreign interaction with Krumen).
In practice, the extent of borrowing varies widely with speakers of different regions (commonly among young people), and during different occasions.
French momí comes from the old French ma mie ("my dear"), and can sound like it means "grandmother", but means "girlfriend" kelási for class/school
Spanish chiclé for chewing gum
Portuguese manteka for butter mésa for table sapátu for shoes
English míliki for milk súpu for soup mamiwata for mermaid, literally mammy/water búku for bookLe grand Dzo : nouveau dictionnaire illustré lingala-français / Adolphe mótuka, from motor-car, for carLingala – Malóba ma lokóta/Dictionnaire
Variation The Lingala language can be divided into several regiolects and sociolects. The major regional varieties are northwestern Lingala, Kinshasa Lingala and Brazzaville Lingala.
Literary Lingala (lingala littéraire or lingala classique in French) is a standardized form used mostly in education and news broadcasts on state-owned radio or television and in Roman Catholic religious services, It is taught as a subject at some educational levels. It is historically associated with the work of the Catholic Church, the Belgian CICM missionaries in particular. It has a seven-vowel system () with an obligatory tense-lax vowel harmony. It also has a full range of morphological noun prefixes with mandatory grammatical agreement system with subject–verb, or noun–modifier for each of class. It is largely used in formal functions and in some forms of writing. Most native speakers of Spoken Lingala and Kinshasa Lingala consider it incomprehensible.
Northwestern (or Equateur) Lingala is the product of the (incomplete) internalization by Congolese of the prescriptive rules the CICM missionaries intended when designing Literary Lingala. The northwest is a zone where the CICM missionaries strongly supported the network of schools.
Spoken Lingala (called lingala parlé in French) is the variety mostly used in Lingalaphones' day-to-day lives. It has a full morphological noun prefix system, but the agreement system in the noun phrase is laxer than the literary variety's. There is a five-vowel system and no vowel harmony. Spoken Lingala is largely used in informal functions, and the majority of Lingala songs use spoken Lingala. Modern spoken Lingala is influenced by French; French verbs, for example, may be "lingalized", adding Lingala inflection prefixes and suffixes: "acomprenaki te" or "acomprendraki te" ("he did not understand", using the French word comprendre) instead of classic Lingala "asímbaki ntína te" (literally: "s/he grasped/held the root/cause not"). These French influences are more prevalent in Kinshasa and indicate an erosion of the language as education in French becomes accessible to more of the population. There are pronunciation differences between "Catholic Lingala" and "Protestant Lingala", for example nzala/njala ("hunger").
Lingala ya Bayankee (sometimes called Yanké) is a sociolect widely used in Kinshasa, e.g., by street youth, street vendors, criminal gangs and homeless children.Nassenstein, Nico. "Democratic Republic of the Congo: lingala ya Bayankee/Yanké." In Urban Contact Dialects and Language Change, pp. 28–46. Routledge, 2022. Langila is a little-studied language game (or ludic practice) musicians initially created shortly after 2000 that is increasingly used in social media and sites of cultural production.
Phonology
Vowels Front Back Close Close-mid Open-mid Open
IPA Example (IPA) Example (written) Meaning Notes lilála orange kulútu elder elongi face mobáli boy pronounced slightly higher than the cardinal , realized as lɛlɔ́ today mbɔ́ngɔ money áwa here
Vowel harmony Lingala words show vowel harmony to some extent. The close-mid vowels and normally do not mix with the open-mid vowels and in words. For example, the words ndɔbɔ 'fishhook' and ndobo 'mouse trap' are found, but not *ndɔbo or *ndobɔ.
Vowel shift The Lingala spoken in Kinshasa shows a vowel shift from to , leading to the absence of the phoneme in favor of . The same occurs with and , leading to just . So in Kinshasa, a native speaker will say mbóte as , compared to the more traditional pronunciation, .
Consonants LabialCoronalPalatalDorsalNasalm n ny //Plosivep t k mp nt nk b d g mb nd ng Fricativef s sh //ns v z (//)nz Approximantw l y IPA Example (IPA) Example (written) Meaning napɛ́sí I give mpɛmbɛ́ni near bolingo love mbɛlí knife litéya lesson ntɔ́ngó dawn daidai sticky ndeko sibling, cousin, relative mokɔlɔ day nkóló owner galamɛ́lɛ grammar ngáí me mamá mother boyini hate nyama animal fɔtɔ́ photograph veló bicycle sɔ̂lɔ truly nyɔ́nsɔ all zɛ́lɔ sand nzámbe God cakú or shakú African grey parrot ɔ́lɔ gold yé him; her (object pronoun) wápi where
Prenasalized consonants The prenasalized stops formed with a nasal followed by a voiceless plosive are allophonic to the voiceless plosives alone in some variations of Lingala. : or e.g.: mpɛmbɛ́ni is pronounced but in some variations : or e.g.: ntɔ́ngó is pronounced but in some variations : or e.g.: nkanya (fork) is pronounced but in some variations : or (inside a word) e.g.: nyɔnsɔ is pronounced but in some variations The prenasalized voiced occlusives, , do not vary.
Tones Lingala is a tonal language. Tone is a distinguishing feature in minimal pairs, e.g.: mutu (human being) and mutú (head), or kokoma (to write) and kokóma (to arrive). There are two main tones, low and high, and two less common ones: starting high, dipping low, and ending high, all within the same vowel sound, e.g., mǐso (eyes); and starting low, rising high, and ending low, e.g., bôngó (therefore).
Tonal morphology Tense morphemes carry tones.
koma komL-a write sepela seLpel-a enjoy simple present nakoma naL-komL-aL I write osepela oL-seLpelL-aL you- enjoy subjunctive nákoma naH-komL-aL I would write ósepéla oH-seLpelH-aH you- would enjoy present nakomí naL-komL-iH I have been writing osepelí oL-seLpelL-iH you- have been enjoying
Grammar
Noun class system Akin to all Bantu languages, Lingala has a noun class system in which nouns are classified according to the prefixes they bear and the prefixes they trigger in sentences. The table below shows Lingala's noun classes ordered according to the numbering system widely used in descriptions of Bantu languages.
ClassNoun prefixExampleTranslation1mo-mopésigiver2ba-bapésigivers3mo-mokílatail4mi-mikílatails5li-lilobaword6ma-malobawords7e-elɔ́kɔthing8bi-bilɔ́kɔthings9m-/n-ntabagoat10m-/n-ntabagoats9aØsánzámoon10aØsánzámoons11lo-lolémutongue14bo-bosɔtɔdirt15ko-kosálato work (infinitive)