Kongo

Story

Kikongo is a Bantu language that was the tongue of the Kingdom of Kongo, one of the largest and most sophisticated states in pre-colonial Africa, which at its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stretched across parts of five modern countries and conducted diplomacy entirely in Kikongo. When Portuguese traders arrived in the 1480s, the Kongo king sent ambassadors to Lisbon, and Kikongo became one of the first African languages to be documented and partially learned by Europeans. The trans-Atlantic slave trade forcibly dispersed hundreds of thousands of Kikongo speakers to the Americas, where the language left deep traces in Afro-Brazilian religious ritual, Cuban Palo Monte ceremonies, and Haitian Vodou. Today Kikongo is recognised as a national language in the DRC, where it navigates three separate national constitutions alongside its own transnational community.

At a glance

• Also known as: Kikongo
• Family: Niger-Congo
• Region: Central Africa
• Speakers: 12M (total speakers (l1 plus l2): approximately 7 million l1 plus 5 million l2 (wikipedia citing 1982 to 2021 data))
• Writing system: Latin
• Greeting: Mbote (hello)

Spoken in

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Angola, Gabon

Common questions